


First Blood

by Narsil



Series: A New Future [2]
Category: Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Continuation, F/F, Ranma-chan, Retrotech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:14:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 38
Words: 97,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narsil/pseuds/Narsil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been several months since everything changed, and Ranma is learning new techniques and enjoying life with Akane. But the new enemy of the Senshi is finally here.... Rated M for eventual violence to be safe</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Afternoon in the Life ...

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate history (both the world in general and the Senshi in particular) continuation for both Sailor Moon and Ranma 1/2, set in a world with no space exploration, personal computers, cell phones, or anything else requiring a transistor.

  * **1943:** The U.S. Department of the Navy decides against funding the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) project.
  * **1945:** Budget issues and a management crisis at Bell Labs derail work into improved telecommunication switches. The transistor is never invented.
  * **1956-1964:** Humanity struggles to reach the stars, but both Soviet and American efforts to launch and sustain artificial satellites fail. No rocket design proves capable of carrying itself to orbit. The first primitive general-purpose computers appear to help solve rocketry problems, but they cannot fulfill the requirements of the space program.
  * **1998:** The ‘euro’ becomes the official currency of the European Union, except in the U.K.
  * **2001:** Islamist terrorists fly hijacked airliners into the World Trade towers, the Pentagon.
  * **2005:** Claiming economic and security concerns, the European Union annexes the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovakia, and Vojvodina, creating a protectorate. Russian protests are ineffectual.
  * **2009:** European Union annexes Balkan nations, when the UN declines to take effective action the US withdraws from the UN, orders it out of the country. Ranma is frozen in girl-form, gains protection from magical influence, and remembers a past life as Princess Usagi’s little sister Yasuko while resisting Happosai’s final attack, leaves dojo with Akane.



* * *

Ranma sat on a floor mat meditating beside a large block of wood, the sounds of traffic coming through the apartment window not so much deliberately ignored as accepted as white noise while the ripples across the surface of her mind from her eagerness and frustration were also accepted as inner white noise to be acknowledged and allowed to wash through without disturbing her calm.

Finally, as her surface mind stilled and the noise from outside momentarily died down, Ranma reached out a hand, palm up, fingers lightly curled. After a few moments, balls of clear, glowing light coalesced around each finger tip, and Ranma felt a wave of satisfaction and anticipation wash through her. Carefully not resisting the wave, she waited a moment until her mind stilled again and focused on her fingertips and _willed_ — and the balls of light deformed, squeezing and lengthening out, forming edged spikes. Struggling to maintain her calm, Ranma reached out her hand and ran her fingers horizontally across the wood block, then reached out and tapped it with her other hand. The block collapsed into six separate pieces and the claws of light vanished back into her fingers as the pigtailed redhead sprang to her feet with a shout of exultation.

“Yes, finally!” she screamed, fist pumping the air, then took a a deep breath. “Okay, Ranma, calm down,” she muttered to herself. “You’ve got the claws, but they aren’t going to do you much good if you can’t control them or they vanish at the least hint of excitement. So, let’s try this again.”

Sitting back down, she again stilled her mind, allowing the excitement to wash through her and die away as she refused to hold onto it, then again reached out her hand and unconsciously smiled slightly as the claws of light formed, more easily this time. This time, rather than scratch at the shredded block, Ranma carefully closed her fingers until the clear shining claws barely touched the ball of her hand, then closed her fingers just a _bit_ more, and nodded slightly in satisfaction as the claws sank into her hand without leaving a scratch. Opening her fingers and reabsorbing the Ki claws, she carefully examined her hand — not a hint of blood. _Good, I don’t need to worry about cutting myself in a fight_ , she thought as she bounced to her feet.

_Now, let’s see how far I can get with some basic katas with the claws formed._ The petite redhead assumed a practice stance, only with one hand shaped into claws instead of balled into a fist. After a long moment, the Ki claws reformed, and Ranma grinned. _Okay, that was a lot easier. Now...._ she flowed into the first steps of the basic kata, only to have the claws flicker and disappear. _Damn, that didn’t last very long. Well, let’s try again, practice makes perfect...._

/oOo\

Ranma flowed through the last steps of the kata and grinned as she wiped the sweat from her face with one hand — the claws on her other hand were still in firmly in place. _Good, now to move on to both ..._ and the claws flickered out as the front door to the apartment opened and voices reverberated through the rooms.

“Who cares if the United States has left the UN and told it to pack up and move out?” the voice of Ranma’s lover of the past two months said. “Between the permanent members’ veto power and the way it was militarily useless unless the US got behind it, all it was, was a massive and very expensive debating society, anyway!”

“Perhaps,” came the soft voice of Hotaru, Senshi of Silence and Akane’s new friend and schoolmate, “but that debating society was important — it gave the US international cover for its actions, and don’t ignore the usefulness of that debating society for defusing tensions and giving states an international forum for airing their grievances, we’re going to miss that badly in years to come. Chibi-Usa, what do you think?”

“Don’t look at me, I was raised in an absolute monarchy — the chaos pretty much every democracy on Earth seems to thrive on just leaves me baffled,” said the third member of what their schoolmates had started calling the Three Musketeers thanks to that cheesy (but fun) American movie.

“Republics, really, not democracies,” Hotaru corrected pedantically as Ranma stepped into the family room, and Akane rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Hotaru, we know we really have republics instead of democracies, but —” She chopped herself off short and her eyes lit up as she noticed Ranma standing at the other end of the room, then her school bag was on the floor and she was across the room, sweeping the redhead up into a hug as the pair melted into a deep kiss.

Hotaru just shook her head as Chibi-Usa made gagging noises. “You two are as bad as Haruka-papa and Michiru-mama,” the slight, dark-haired girl asserted with a slight smile.

“Worse!” Chibi-Usa stated firmly. “At least those two have had years to settle down some, we’re going to have to put up with this for months!”

The two ex-Nerimans broke their kiss and pulled apart so that they were both grinning at their friends, though their arms had naturally snaked around each other’s waist. “You’re just jealous,” Akane asserted haughtily, and Ranma laughed at the faces and warding gestures Hotaru and Chibi-Usa made in response.

“Hey, guys, I’ve got something to show you!” she said excitedly, and the eyes of the rest of the girls widened at the excitement in her voice.

“You did it — the Cat Fist?” Akane eagerly asked, breaking away and staring hopefully at her lover.

“A’ course,” Ranma said with a hint of her old cocky manner, lifted one hand, sought the calm pool at her center, and _willed_ , and the clear, glowing claws popped into view at her fingers’ ends to the gasps of Akane’s two friends and a slight frown from Akane.

“Ranma, the last time you ‘went cat’, the claws weren’t visible,” the former Tendo commented, feigning unconcern, and Ranma shrugged.

“True, I guess, ya know I can’t remember what happens when I do that,” she replied. “But this ain’t the Cat Fist, just the same thing done a different way — I think. But the important thing is that I’m not focusing my Ki through an emotion ta do this, so it shouldn’t be dangerous like my ranged attacks or yer hammer — not to us, at least,” she finished with a feral grin.

“Great!” Chibi-Usa enthused. “This calls for a celebration!”

“Sure,” Ranma agreed, just before her smile turned knowing, “ _after_ our workout.”

“Aw, just once?” Chibi-Usa implored, batting her eyes at the redhead and ignoring Akane’s mock-growl as Hotaru chuckled, and Ranma shook her head.

“Nope, not once, except for _real_ emergencies,” she said sternly. “You’re coming along nicely, Hotaru’s gettin’ pretty good with pig-stickers, and Akane’s gettin’ good at usin’ meditation ta control her anger — but if ya start makin’ excuses ta avoid workin’ out, the next thing ya know yer not workin’ out at all, and then everything you’ve gained drains away. So get changed inta yer workout clothes, an’ after we’re done we’ll head down ta the Crown Arcade fer ice cream, my treat! Well, actually Nabiki’s treat, but my allowance.”

Akane laughed at Chibi-Usa’s woebegone look. “Sorry, Usa, Ranma’s used the puppy dog eyes so much herself she’s built up an immunity. Of course, that means we’ll get plenty of ice cream after practice, so let’s get it done.” She disappeared down the hallway toward her and Ranma’s bedroom, and the other two dropped their schoolbags and followed.

/oOo\

Sailor Uranus stumbled backwards, the gore-encrusted Space Sword held in front of her in one hand and the other hand pressed against her side, trying to staunch the blood pulsing from a slowly healing wound, as the winged, scaled, clawed, tentacled horse-sized _thing_ crashed to the street in front of her. Managing to avoid falling on her ass, the blond short-haired Senshi took something vaguely resembling a defensive stance and waited, but the monster stayed down and finally she got tired of waiting and approached it. Preparing to throw herself backward, she poked it with her sword, then when it didn’t move thrust the blade in halfway to the hilt — nothing, it was _finally_ dead.

Uranus dropped to her knees, gasping for air, then looked frantically around. _Where’s Michiru? The last I saw she’d been knocked to the right_ ... There was a hole in the shoe store’s wall, maybe — She used the Space Sword like a cane to lever herself to her feet and hobbled over toward the hole, then sagged in relief as the dust-covered disheveled green-haired Senshi of the Deeps appeared in the hole, hands raised for an attack as she scanned the street. She lowered her arms at the sight of the dead creature and slowly clambered through the hole she’d created and hastily hobbled over to her lover.

“Uranus, are you all right?” she asked concernedly, and Uranus shrugged.

“Any fight you can walk away from — I’ll be fine once this wound heals. Just remind me to apologize to Ranma for resisting when she insisted I learn something of how to use my sword — how did she put it? — ‘like a sword, not a table leg ya grabbed in a barroom brawl’.”

Neptune just shook her head with a laugh, then pulled the arm with the sword over her shoulders and helped Uranus over to sit on what used to be a car. Sitting down next to her, Neptune looked back at the battlefield and frowned. “Something isn’t right,” she mused, and Uranus looked around at the torn up street, shattered storefront windows, holed walls, damaged cars and pieces of what used to be cars, torn-up street signs and knocked over poles.

“Looks normal to me,” she said with a shrug.

“Except for one thing — the youma, it isn’t disintegrating, it’s just lying there.”

“Hmm, you’re right,” Uranus mused, staring at the corpse that was obviously not going anywhere anytime soon — at least, not without some help. “Well, if it isn’t disintegrating it isn’t a youma, which means it must be the first of the new wave Pluto told us about. If this was just the first and weakest, we’re going to be in for a real fight this time.” With a groan, she levered herself back to her feet. “Come on, let’s get out of here before the authorities show up and let the others know.”

/oOo\

Chibi-Usa and Hotaru stared in awe at the heaped-up dishes of ice cream Ranma was carrying over to the table while Akane just shook her head with a fond smile. “Ranma, it’s been years and I _still_ can’t believe how much you can scam from servers,” she said, and Ranma laughed.

“It’s the Cute Girl Style, don’t ya know?” the redhead said, giving the three a look that made their hearts melt, then adding an impish grin.

“Well, _I’m_ not going to complain about the results,” Hotaru murmured, grabbing a spoon as Ranma placed one of the dishes in front of her and Chibi-Usa before sliding in next to Akane and putting the other dish between them.

A few minutes and half a bowl of ice cream later, Chibi-Usa leaned back and sighed with pleasure, then looked over at Ranma. “Hey Ranma, you have that disappear-into-thin-air thing, you’ve figured out how to use Ki to sense all living things around you, and now you have the Cat Claws, are you going to join the Senshi’s fights?” she asked, and Ranma perked up.

“Of course!” she said firmly, missing the look of concern that flashed across Akane’s face. “It’s a little early yet, I have to make sure I can stay in control well enough ta keep the claws up in a fight, but once I’m sure I won’t just be a target, there’s no way I’m lettin’ you guys and big sis go inta a fight without me!”

“Well, in that case you’re going to need a costume!” Chibi-Usa stated firmly, and Ranma blanched while Hotaru perked up.

“Right!” the normally soft-spoken girl agreed with unusual vehemence.

Akane sighed and shrugged. _If it’s going to be, I might as well join the fun!_ “Well, I suppose the first question is how long the skirt should be,” she said, giving Ranma a glance out of the corner of her eyes and grinning as Ranma’s face went even whiter.

“Skirt?” the redhead choked out, and Chibi-Usa nodded agreement.

“Absolutely! There’s no way we’re going to get you into a fuku — and what was Grandmother thinking when she signed off on those things, anyway? — but if you’re going to be affiliated with the Senshi you should look at least a _little_ like them. Now, I’m thinking a knee-length black skirt with bicycle shorts underneath....”

/oOo\

Ranma and Akane lay spooned together in the extra-large bed they shared, Akane pressed up against Ranma’s back, listening as the front door to the apartment opened. There was a thump Akane assumed was a book bag hitting the floor, then the occasional creak of a floorboard along with the footsteps approaching their room. She closed her eyes as their bedroom door cracked open and a thin bar of light fell across the bed, and opening her eyes a crack she could see a partial silhouette of her older sister in the door for a moment before the door closed again and she heard Nabiki try to quietly walk back to the kitchen for a late supper. Chuckling quietly, Akane whispered, “Isn’t it sweet, how Nabiki checks on us every time she gets home late from the infomat? And that seems to be more often than not, lately — maybe we should look into buying one for her personal use.”

“I guess, if ya got a small fortune tucked away somewhere,” came Ranma’s gruff reply, and Akane sighed.

“Ranma, you aren’t _really_ still upset about the costume we designed for you, are you? You know you don’t have to wear it unless you want to.”

Ranma laughed sharply, then cut herself off to avoid attracting Nabiki’s attention. “Yeah, right,” she said, “like I’m gonna refuse to wear it after Usa and Hotaru go through the effort of making it. I just hope it doesn’t look _too_ ridiculous.”

“Well, _I_ think it’ll look pretty good. And even if it doesn’t, at least you’ll be able to fight, even if you _do_ look ridiculous. I wish ... Ranma, how long do you think it’ll be before I’m safe to teach the Cat Claw to?”

Ranma stiffened, then turned in the bed to face Akane and whispered, “Yer safe to teach it to right now, any time ya lose yer temper the claws’ll disappear. What’s not safe is fer ya to go inta a fight depending on them.”

“So how long until I can depend on them?”

“I don’t know,” Ranma admitted. “It’s up ta you. If ya keep it up at as ya are I’d say in a couple a’ months, but I can’t promise anything. And if ya start tryin’ ta hurry things up yer just gonna make it take longer.”

“I know, but this isn’t going to be like most of the fights we had in Nerima, the thought of you going into a life or death fight without me ...” Akane’s voice choked up, and Ranma pulled her into a one-armed hug.

“Yeah, I know — the thought a’ you goin’ inta a fight without me scares me, too. We’ll just have to see what happens. Now, ya got school in the morning, you need ta get ta sleep. Love ya, Tomboy.”

Akane yawned, then returned Ranma’s hug. “Love you, Baka, good night.”


	2. Look who's back!

In the apartment room that had been converted into a mini-dojo, Ranma slowly moved through the most complicated ground-based kata she knew, the glowing claws on both hands slashing through empty air, her mind in an odd trance that left her aware of everything around her even as nothing seemed quite real. Her satisfaction grew as she came toward the end of the kata, claws still in place, and the claws wavered slightly. Careful not to panic, the pigtailed girl allowed the satisfaction to wash over and through her without touching her core, the claws firmed up, and a few seconds later she reached the last few steps and halted, panting. Holding up her hands, she gazed at the claws still glowing at the ends of each finger.

This time, the wave of exultation was uncontrollable and the claws winked out, but Ranma just shook her head with a grin. _Okay, you’re gettin’ better but ya aren’t there yet — not ta the point of trustin’ them in a fight. So, let’s try it again._

She was halfway through the kata when she heard the apartment door open, and immediately her concentration broke and the claws vanished. With a soft curse Ranma glanced at the clock on the wall and frowned. _It’s a little early for Akane, I hope nothing’s wrong._ Then Nabiki’s “Tadaima!” echoed through the apartment and the slight tension Ranma had been carefully ignoring vanished as she headed for the front room.

Nabiki looked up from where she was pouring herself a glass of water as Ranma walked in. “Ranma, how’s it going?” the brown-haired girl asked with her usual slightly wry smile.

“I think that’s my line,” Ranma replied with a grin. “This is the first time I’ve seen ya this week, why home so early, the infomat blow a fuse from all the work ya been givin’ it?”

“No,” Nabiki said with a grin, “I just decided I needed a break before I collapsed — we don’t all have your endurance, you know. So, how’s the training been going, any breakthroughs?”

Without a word Ranma lifted her hand, and Nabiki gasped as the claws popped into existence. “You did it!” she squealed, then blushed slightly and carefully ignored Ranma’s grin as she forced her own grin back to a slight smile.

“So, now that you have the claws, are you going to put on a miniskirt and go out to fight for Love and Justice?” she jibed gently, and grinned when it was Ranma’s turn to blush.

“Nah, not yet — the claws aren’t ready fer a serious fight,” Ranma said offhandedly, firmly ignoring the memories of Hotaru’s and Usa’s (and Akane’s, darn it!) enthusiastic speculation on a proper costume the previous day. “So, what ya been studyin’ so hard lately?”

“Tadaima!” Akane called as she walked through the door, and smiled at the sound of Nabiki’s greeting along with Ranma’s. Stepping over to the table where the two sat sharing an afternoon snack, she ignored her sister to bend down to Ranma’s upturned face for a long, hard kiss.

When the two finally broke apart they blushed to find a grinning Nabiki softly clapping. “It’s too bad I can’t bottle that,” she commented slyly, “I’d make a fortune.”

Ranma hastily looked around for a distraction and frowned. “Akane,” she asked, “where are Hotaru and Usa?”

“They had to go to a meeting,” Akane replied. “Senshi business, something about a fight that Neptune and Uranus had yesterday. I’m sure they’ll tell us all about it tomorrow.”

“Good,” Ranma said somewhat petulantly, “ ‘cause big sis probably won’t.”

“Usagi’s just trying to protect you,” Nabiki said with a shrug, “and doesn’t that make a nice change of pace? By the way,” she added, “speaking of protectors, you won’t believe what I saw coming home — a grand opening for a new Cat Café!”

“What!” Ranma and Akane chorused. “It’s just a coincidence, right?” Ranma almost begged, but Nabiki shook her head.

“Not unless you include a shriveled up old crone for a cook and a busty purple-haired teenaged Amazon wearing next to nothing for a waitress as part of the coincidence,” she said, and Ranma shot to her feet.

“Damn it, I told them I wanted to be left alone!” she shouted and stormed to the front door only to stop as she opened it. “Uh, Nabiki, where is it?” she asked, but Akane interrupted before Nabiki could respond.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Ranma?” she asked sweetly, and Ranma frowned in confusion. “Like practice?” Akane continued. “You know, what you said yesterday about only missing if we absolutely have to?”

“Oh, yeah, right — practice,” Ranma said abashedly, and after a long moment reluctantly closed the door, carefully ignoring Akane’s grin. “Come on, let’s get started,” she grumped, heading for the mini-dojo while Akane picked up her schoolbag and headed for their bedroom to change.

/oOo\

Welcome to the — Ranma!” Ku Lon heard from behind the window where she was busy showing Klen Sur, Elder of the Joketsuzoku, how to manage a restaurant kitchen, and the ancient matriarch looked up in time to see her great-granddaughter glomp-tackle Her Royal Highness hard enough that the petite redhead staggered back, kept from falling only by hasty support from the two Tendo sisters bracketing her.

Klen Sur raised an eyebrow at the scene. “That’s the Princess?” she asked, and Ku Lon nodded wryly.

“Yes, that’s the Princess. And yes, Xian Pu’s manners don’t exactly fit protocol. Just as well, I suppose — Princess Yasuko is far from reconciled to her new status and wouldn’t take proper protocol well at all.”

Ku Lon carefully looked over the new trio, and smiled in approval at what she saw as the excited Xian Pu let go of her nominal ruler and escorted the three to a booth in the back away from the rest of the diners, while Mu Tse interrupted clearing tables to say hello. _Good, Akane seems more secure — there was just a flash of anger that she laughed off when Xian Pu hugged Ranma, and hardly had to force it at all. And Ranma seems calmer, she isn’t constantly checking for possible threats, and that habitual swagger’s missing. And they’re trying to hide it, but from the not-so-casual touches they’re probably lovers, excellent._ Then, with a chuckle, _And it looks like they somehow convinced her to wear a bra, I wasn’t sure that was going to be possible._

The Elder quickly banished her smile as Xian Pu bounced over to the kitchen window. “Great-grandmother, Ranma wants to speak to you,” she said happily, and Ku Lon frowned sternly.

“I will be happy to attend to the _Princess_ ,” she replied.

Xian Pu hung her head, the smile vanishing. “Of course, great-grandmother — the Princess,” she said softly.

“No harm done, child,” Ku Lon said with a sigh. “Considering that she hasn’t had a chance to become reconciled yet to her new status it’s just as well. Still, eventually you are going to have to come to see her as Princess Yasuko and not just your friend Ranma.”

Xian Pu nodded and Ku Lon turned to Klen Sur. “It’s a light crowd, you should be able to handle the orders for now,” she said, and with Klen Sur’s nod she pogoed through the window and over to the waiting girls.

“Here she comes,” Nabiki warned, and Ranma looked up from where she’d been listening to Akane talk about her day at school, banishing the slightly bemused expression she’d worn since Xian Pu’s … enthusiastic … greeting.

Catching the thoughtful look on Nabiki’s face she asked, “Something wrong?”

Nabiki shook her head, then nodded at the approaching matriarch. “No, just an interesting scene, I’ll tell you later.”

Nodding acknowledgment, Ranma focused on the tiny crone that had just landed on their table and tried to put on the stormy expression she’d worn until reaching the café, but managed only a drizzly kind of frown. “What are ya doin’ here, ol’ ghoul? I thought I told ya I didn’t want yer help,” Ranma said in what was supposed to be a stern tone but only managed to sound petulant.

Ku Lon just smiled. “It’s good to see you again as well, Princess.”

Ranma jerked, and now the stormy expression was back for real. “I told ya not ta call me that!”

Ku Lon just shook her head. “Whatever I may call you, it does not change what you are, and our own responsibilities,” she said solemnly.

Ranma opened her mouth to respond, but Nabiki spoke first, looking around the restaurant. “Nice place, it looks like it’s twice as big as your old one, good choice in location, too — and you sure put everything together in a hurry. Are you hiring? Ranma could use some time out of the apartment, all that nonstop practice and study can’t be good.” _Not that we need the money, thanks to the extra Meioh-san slipped me when Ranma wasn’t watching._

Akane and Ranma stared incredulously at Nabiki, but Ku Lon only chuckled.

“You are quite skilled at the question game for one as young as you are. To answer your questions, we knew where to set up the restaurant because Lady Pluto told us where you’d be, and she helped smooth the way with the authorities. And even if we needed the help it wouldn’t be ... proper ... for the Princess to work here as a waitress, but we don’t — sufficient warriors and elders have arrived to handle the restaurant while still performing our duties, while we seek a way to move the rest of the village to Tokyo.”

“What?!” Ranma shouted, then blushed and shrank back as customers glanced toward the outburst for a moment before politely turning back to their meals. “Puu told you?” she asked more quietly. “And you’re _all_ moving here? _Why?_ ”

“Don’t hold it against her, Lady Pluto was reluctant to tell us,” Ku Lon said gently. “But while we normally defer to her wishes, in this we insisted and she decided it was better to tell us and help us move and keep us as allies than to lose our friendship and have us find you ourselves — it wouldn’t have been that hard. And of course, the entire tribe is moving here. You _are_ our princess, and if you will not move to China we will simply have to join you here.”

Ranma gaped, stunned speechless, and the matriarch smiled sadly. “Ranma, overall your change has done you good — gotten you out of that pressure cooker you were slowly stewing in, given you love,” — nodding at a suddenly blushing Akane — “enabled you to find your older sister, but this comes with it. And while you may so far be unwilling to accept us, we have no choice but to follow you.”


	3. You know a sister worries ...

At the Hinako Shrine, seven women, six young and one young/ancient, and two teenage girls looked toward the door, their faces lighting up, as Usagi, her hair in a long braid, and her husband walked into the room. “Hey, Mamoru, welcome back!” Rei called, waving hello from her seat. “How was Australia?”

“Hot, dry and _very_ dusty, at least the part where I had to spend the last few months,” Mamoru replied, even as he glanced over at Chibi-Usa, and his neo-daughter from the future grinned happily as his slight smile of an apparently cool welcome was belied by his shining eyes.

”Ooh, that’s a new look, the braid looks good on you!” Minako enthused, and Usagi smiled happily.

“Thank, Ranma suggested it but I wasn’t sure it’s me.”

“It suits you,” Michiru said.

“Not to mention she’s less likely to trip over it in a fight,” Makoto whispered to Ami, who nodded agreement.

The couple sat down and after a few minutes of gossip Usagi sighed from where she cuddled in her husband’s arms. “I suppose we ought to actually get to why we’re here,” she said regretfully. “I’ve brought Mamo-chan up to speed on little sis and what little you’ve told us about the upcoming threat” — with a slight frown at Setsuna — “so, Haruka and Michiru, why don’t you tell us the full story about yesterday’s fight?”

“... and then we called you all and let you know that it had started,” Haruka finished, and Usagi nodded soberly, then looked over at Setsuna again.

“For someone that called a meeting a couple of months ago to talk about this new threat, you haven’t had much to say since.”

“I know, Princess,” the Senshi of Time calmly replied, “but as I said at the time, your sister’s arrival changed everything. I needed to wait until things settled before it was safe to say anything more than I did. And besides, haven’t you been happier just relaxing and getting to know her again?”

Usagi smiled happily, then her smile turned wistful. “You’re right, but playtime’s over. So, is Michiru right, that these aren’t youma this time?”

Gravely, Setsuna nodded. “She is. Rather, these are artificially bred animals, basically biological war machines, created by an alternate Earth that specializes in interdimensional conquests.”

“How different is their history?” Ami asked, perking up, but Setsuna simply shrugged.

“Their empire is apparently extensive, so they’ve been conquering crosstime for at least a number of centuries, but how far back they discovered industrial magic I don’t know.”

“So, what do you know?” Rei asked, raising an eyebrow — she wasn’t quite sure yet what to make of this new Setsuna that was willing to admit ignorance about anything. Setsuna gave the Senshi of Fire a slightly ironic smile, making Rei wonder for a moment if she could read minds as well as the future.

“I know that we are going to be facing an increasing number of attacks by these war animals for the next several months, possibly as much as half a year,” Setsuna responded, “while the Arlana Confederacy tests our capabilities and seeks to wear us down. Only in the last attack will we be facing their actual warriors, consisting of men armed with enchanted hand weapons and armor and protected against high-speed kinetic attacks.” Frowning slightly, she added, “Apparently, they like to think of themselves as warriors rather than conquerors, in spite of choosing to invade those worlds least capable of resisting them.”

“How many warriors are you talking about?” Michiru asked, frowning thoughtfully.

“Hundreds, maybe thousands if we take too long,” Setsuna said calmly, then looked around at her suddenly frozen friends.

“Hundreds? Maybe thousands?” Makoto whispered, and Setsuna nodded.

“Sounds like we need some back-up,” Haruka quipped, and Chibi-Usa perked up.

“And I know where we can get at least one!” she said excitedly, ignoring Hotaru’s shushing gesture. “Yesterday Ranma managed to create the ki-claws she’s been working on the last few months. They aren’t very dependable yet, but give her a few months and they will be — between those claws and her martial arts training she’ll be a big help.”

Immediately, smiles broke out on the other Senshi’s faces. “Really?” “Great!” “She _will_ be a big help!”

“No!” Usagi’s curt refusal cut across the responses and silence slammed down as everyone stared at the long-haired blonde.

“No?” Minako asked.

“No.”

“But Usagi,” Ami protested, “with her ki control she’s as tough as any of us! With the claws —”

“I said _no_!” Usagi shouted, rising to her feet with fists clenched and glaring around at her stunned teammates. Mamoru rose behind her and pulled her into a hug, and she relaxed and drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I lost Yasuko once to an interdimensional invasion, it’s not happening again,” she said softly.

“Usagi,” Ami said gently, “I don’t like it, either. Ranma has her rough edges, but she’s a good kid. But I’ve been reading up on the Life Dancers since Setsuna mentioned them, and they were incredible healers. Ranma says she can already use her ki to speed up her healing. I’m sure if I show her the material on the Life Dancers she’ll be able to learn even more before the final fight, and she’d be a huge asset.”

“So tell, me, Ami, were the Life Dancers able to replace lost limbs, or bring themselves back to life?” Usagi demanded, then nodded when Ami mutely shook her head. “In our fights we’ve all taken hideous injuries, even died. I’ve fixed that before, but it’s magic — Ranma’s immune! Even from magic that’s trying to help her, instead of hurt. No, I’ve only just gotten my little sister back, I’m not losing her again.”

Chibi-Usa opened her mouth to speak, but caught Hotaru’s slight headshake and sat back without saying anything.

The Moon Kingdom’s last princess eased herself out of her husband’s arms, turned and kissed him gently on the cheek, then sat back down. “So, Setsuna,” Usagi said in the brittle quiet as Mamoru sat down next to her, “what kind of monsters can we expect?”

/oOo\

“Usagi’s reacting like a big sister instead of a princess, with this fixation she has on keeping Ranma safe,” Michiru commented from the car seat next to her lover as the Outers and Chibi-Usa drove to the Outers’ home.

“Yes, she is,” Setsuna agreed from the back seat.

“Well, she isn’t going to win this one, we’re going to need Ranma’s help,” Chibi-Usa asserted, and Hotaru nodded agreement with a thoughtful frown from where she sat between Chibi-Usa and Setsuna.

“True, but don’t push her on it,” she said. “Ranma will take care of that herself when she thinks she’s ready, right Setsuna-mama?”

“Right,” Setsuna said, putting her arm around Hotaru with a gentle smile seen only rarely by anyone not in the car with her.

The car fell silent for a time as they threaded their way through the Tokyo evening traffic, until Haruka said in a reluctant tone, “I hate to say this, considering everything she’s gone through, but why is Usagi still our leader?”

“Why shouldn’t she be?” Setsuna asked, and Haruka sighed.

“Look, I don’t have anything against her. She didn’t ask to have all this responsibility dumped on her and she’s always come through — complaining all the way sometimes,” she added with a chuckle, “but she’s come through. But it’s the future that’s important, she isn’t going to be the Queen now, and Minako, Rei, I, or even Makoto would make better combat leaders. Shouldn’t one of us take over?”

Setsuna shook her head. “It’s an honest thought, but no. First, as you say, she’s earned it. Second, even if she isn’t going to be the Queen she _is_ the Princess. And third — remember when you first met her, how we thought she was too soft, unwilling to make the hard choices?” Haruka nodded. “And how often was she wrong and we were right?”

“Well ... never, not when it really mattered,” Haruka admitted, and Setsuna nodded.

“Right, there’s more to being a leader — or at least _our_ leader — than battlefield expertise. Besides,” she added with a chuckle, “if we’re going to pick a leader based on competence in combat it would be Ranma.”

“You have me there!” Haruka said with a laugh. “So, Hotaru, Usa, how are things going at school for the Three Musketeers?”


	4. Breaking the News

“She said _what_?! What do you mean, I can’t help?!” Ranma shouted as she started to bounce to her feet, only to let out an “oomph!” as her legs collided with the underside of the table and she thumped back into the booth’s seat.

“Sssh! Not so loud, you’re attracting attention!” Chibi-Usa hissed from where she sat to Ranma’s right beside the aisle.

Ranma shrank into herself, blanching and glancing around, then sighed in relief when she realized she couldn’t be seen by the other patrons of the restaurant where Ranma and the younger two Tendo sisters were enjoying a rare meeting with Nodoka, along with the two youngest Senshi.

To Ranma’s left, Nodoka gripped her daughter’s hand briefly for comfort and the redhead straightened up again, her paleness vanishing as an angry flush replaced it. Much more quietly, Ranma hissed, “I’m a better fighter than any of them already, and once I’ve perfected the Cat Claws I’ll be just as dangerous — what is big sis thinking?!”

From where Nabiki was sitting across from Chibi-Usa (and where she could keep an eye on the rest of the restaurant from their booth in the back), she drawled, “I’d say Usagi’s thinking that she doesn’t want to lose her little sister after barely finding her again. And isn’t it a nice change of pace that your family wants you to _avoid_ a fight because they love you?”

Ranma’s gaze dropped, then she looked up as Akane, sitting across from Nodoka, finally lost her battle with mirth and slapped her hand across her mouth to muffle her peals of laughter. Nodoka and Hotaru, sitting between the two Tendo sisters, looked over at Akane in confusion as Ranma growled out, “Okay, Tomboy, what’s so funny ‘bout Usagi saying I can’t help fight?”

Finally suppressing her laughter, Akane whispered, “But Ranma, I want to help — I’m a Martial Artist too!” Then she lost control of her laughter again as her lover flinched and her flush deepened, while Nabiki snorted in amusement and Nodoka’s confusion deepened.

“What am I missing?” the Saotome matriarch asked, and Akane once again fought her laughter into submission while a chuckling Nabiki told of all the times Akane had said something similar to Ranma when he told her to back off, worried about his fiancée’s safety.

By the time she was done Ranma’s mother and two friends had joined in with Nabiki’s chuckles, and Ranma finally growled, “All right, so I’m bein’ a little hypo- ... hypocritical. But it isn’t exactly the same — I don’t want ta charge in ‘til I’m sure I can actually help!”

Finally sobering, Akane gave her lover a firm look. “And I don’t, either. But I _do_ want to join in when I’m ready. And remember, you promised you’d _really_ train me and let me know when that was — your _word of honor_ , Ranma.”

Ranma nodded, unconsciously shrinking into herself slightly. “Yeah, I remember. An’ I’ll keep that promise. But —”

“But you feel the same way as Usagi,” Akane said with a soft smile, and Ranma sighed, then nodded,

“Yeah, I guess so,” she muttered. “But I’m not gonna let that stop me from helping.”

“So when do you think you’ll be ready?” Chibi-Usa asked.

“At the rate I’m improving, few weeks at most,” Ranma said, and her pink-haired friend gave her a surprised stare.

“That soon?” she asked in a tone of disbelief, and Nabiki gave a bark of laughter.

“No,” the middle Tendo said, “that long — I’ve never known Ranma to take so long to perfect a new technique, if I’d been taking bets on it I’d have lost money.”

Ranma shrugged uncomfortably. “Before, I’d always seen the techniques performed by others. This time, I’m working it out myself. Besides, this time I’m workin’ ta keep emotions outta it instead of usin’ them ta power the claws. It’s totally new ta me.” Embarrassed, the redhead glanced around while scratching the back of her neck, then nudged Chibi-Usa. “Let me out, I need ta use the restroom,” she muttered, and her friend slid out of the way, then sat back down and looked in confusion at the broad grins on Nabiki’s and Akane’s faces.

“Yes!” Akane enthused.

“ ‘Yes’, what?” asked Nodoka from across the table, and Akane blushed, cringing slightly.

“Uh, ‘yes, Ranma’s going to the restroom alone’,” Akane reluctantly explained.

Nodoka frowned. “This is unusual?” she asked, and Akane and Nabiki glanced at each other. Nabiki shrugged, and Akane sighed.

“Uh ... don’t let Ranma know I mentioned it, but yeah, it _is_ unusual,” Akane said, looking worriedly in the direction of the restroom. “She ... well, she doesn’t act as cocky as she did before ... well, you know when. Still, she has a ‘nothing bothers me’ attitude all the time — but never goes anywhere in public without me or Nabiki along, except once with Kasumi when she visited while Nabiki and I were in school. Mostly, she just stays at the apartment and practices.” _And then there’s the nights she wakes up shaking and clutching at me, though at least those seem to be dropping off._

Hotaru placed a gentle hand on Akane’s right shoulder. “She _is_ getting better, though, isn’t she? She certainly seems to enjoy our little outings to the park when we need more room to practice, and she definitely enjoyed our trip to the ice cream parlor.”

Taking a deep breath, Akane nodded. “Yeah, she’s getting better, I’m sure of it.”

Everyone fell silent for a few minutes, then Nabiki spoke up. “She’s coming back.”

“Right!” Akane said, pasting on a smile and looking over at Chibi-Usa. “So, Usa, you have any new ideas for Ranma’s costume?”

“Oh, I have a few ...” Chibi-Usa said with a grin, and Nabiki quirked an eyebrow.

“Costume?” she asked, and Akane chuckled.

“Yeah,” she said, “if Ranma’s going to be fighting alongside the Senshi she needs to look the part!”

“Is that so?” Nabiki said with a slow smile.

As Ranma approached the booth she shivered at the speculative looks directed her way from Chibi-Usa and Nabiki as the pink-haired girl hopped out to let her back into the middle.


	5. Every Breath You Take

Meioh Setsuna sighed as she stepped back into her office at the high school and collapsed into her chair. The latest attack hadn’t been _brutal_ , precisely, but it had definitely been frustrating — a swarm of some kind of small, hairless, boneless, segmented, winged, fast thing with a nasty stinger that had proven immune to fire damage and Moon’s cleansing attacks. Fortunately, it had proven vulnerable to Jupiter’s lightning, but Setsuna’s side still ached where one had gotten in a good shot just before Jupiter killed it (Pluto had survived being on the periphery of the lightning attack as well as the stinger’s poison, but the two together had sapped her energy considerably).

Still, the four Senshi involved in the fight had left alien bodies scattered over nine square blocks, and people had to be getting nervous — even after all the yoma attacks, they just weren’t used to walking out their doors to find corpses of things like nothing that had ever walked ( or in this case, flew over) the Earth. _I wonder if this will be enough to set off the government?_ Setsuna thought. Then, with a groan, _I suppose there’s no time like the present to find out._

Hauling herself to her feet, she once again transformed into Sailor Pluto, _stepped_ through the long-familiar twist to stand before the Time Gates. Leaning on the Garnet Rod, Pluto called up the futures in view before her and watched as they danced through event after sequence after variation. After a time, she sighed and dismissed the view before stepping back into her office.

Reverting to Setsuna, she once again dropped into her chair and leaned her head on her hands, elbows braced on the desk. _Sometimes I_ hate _being right most of the time,_ she thought, then wearily climbed back to her feet, heading for the door. _I suppose if I’m going to beard the lion in his den I’d better get some rest first._  
  


Several hours later, Setsuna slowly came awake to the sound of her alarm clock and grimaced — the few hours of sleep almost seemed to have made things worse. The emerald-haired seemingly young woman dragged herself to her feet and headed to the kitchen. Sitting for a time with a cup of tea, glancing occasionally at the clock on the wall, she finally nodded, stood and washed her tea cup, then transformed and once again _stepped_ over to the Time Gates and brought up the view, only this time it wasn’t flickering, steadily showing a comfortable, not to say well-used, office — books stacked on chairs, memorabilia on shelves, pictures obviously of friends and family rather than the “I love me” wall that graced so many offices intended to impress rather than relax visitors.

But as absent of imperial regalia as the office might be, it was the room’s occupants that had Pluto’s eyebrows crawling up into her hairline. _I expected the Emperor, but the Crown Prince?_ she thought in surprise. _I thought he was still in the monastery where he’s lived these past five years — since he got out of the hospital after the ‘accident’ that killed his wife, children, and older brother and_ his _wife and child. He’s early, I’ll have to review the futures more closely, see what impact that’s going to have. Still, first things first._

The view of the office froze, then reversed and sped up, only to slow as a middle-aged man in a military uniform with the rank markings of a general walked backwards into the view, then backwards out of it. Pluto froze the view when the general disappeared, then started forward at normal speed and nodded as the general reported on the latest findings from the scene of that afternoon’s fight, the camera footage they had of the battle (and how to edit it slightly to make the Senshi look better before releasing it for use as previews in movie theaters — it hadn’t been one of their more glorious, or even competent, fights), and then the expected decision of the Emperor to finally speak to Pluto directly. _Five minutes ago, excellent,_ Pluto thought, _almost perfect timing._

Dismissing the view, Pluto _stepped_ out into the office she had just been observing at the precise split-second she had left her kitchen, and gave the bow of an equal to an Emperor Akihito startled at her sudden appearance as Crown Prince Akishino jerked to his feet. “Good afternoon, Your Majesty,” she said serenely, carefully hiding a jaunty grin at their reaction. “I believe you wished to speak with me.”

Kneeling before the traditional Japanese low table in an informal meeting room close to the Emperor’s working office, Pluto savored the last of the best green tea she could remember in a long time, then carefully placed the heirloom she had been drinking from on the equally priceless saucer and straightened. _As fun as the small talk has been (and informative, and just how long has the Imperial Household been spying on us?), it’s time to get down to brass tacks._

“Your Majesty,” she said calmly, “I thank you for the offer of the use of the JSDF that you are about to make, but I’m afraid that in this instance all your soldiers would do is provide a live training exercise for the Alarna Confederacy’s troops, those few that first encounter them. Any substantial gathering of troops is likely to be detected, and the Confederacy will simply shift their Gate’s locus to a new location, away from your forces where they will have time to establish themselves before you can shift forces to oppose them. Besides, your men aren’t really trained for this kind of foe, it’s best to leave fighting them to those that are.”

“You have seen this?” Emperor Akihito asked from where he knelt beside his son across the table, and Pluto nodded.

“Yes. If Japan’s military — excuse me, self defense force — comes to the Senshi’s aid it will simply make things harder for us when the enemy shifts the location of their invasion site and has time to bring in substantial numbers of troops before we can locate and get to the new site.”

“I see.” The Emperor was silent for a long moment. “And is there any other aid that we can supply in the months of fighting that lie ahead before the actual invasion?”

Pluto pursed her lips thoughtfully, then gave a slight nod. “Actually, there is. If you would _very_ quietly make preparations to smuggle several thousand people out of China, and hold those preparations ready to put into effect at a moment’s notice by, say, a week from now to be safe, that would be an enormous help.”

“The Chinese Amazons?” Crown Prince Akishino asked, and Pluto nodded again.

“Correct,” she said and Akishino frowned.

“Why wait?” he asked. “Why not simply start moving them as soon as the preparations are complete? The Elder Ku Lon has already said that her people are seeking a way to move to Japan en masse, they would welcome the offer.”

“Because their liege lady has not yet asked that their move be expedited,” Pluto said calmly, covertly watching the Emperor, then nodded to herself as he looked thoughtfully at her.

“I see,” he said at last. “You wish for the young reawakened Princess to acknowledge her birthright.”

“Exactly,” Pluto responded. “That acknowledgement isn’t really necessary for the current crisis, but will be later. Besides, they are _her_ people, not mine or yours.”

“And what can these bar — these warriors do that our soldiers cannot?” Akishino asked, carefully keeping his tone free of the offense he so obviously felt (to Pluto’s experienced eye), and she flashed him a slight smile.

“You mean besides provide hundreds of warriors that have trained in combat with muscle-powered weapons all their lives and are at least somewhat familiar with magic, and don’t _look_ like soldiers?” she asked. “You know the nature of the enemy we will face at the end.”

“Ah, yes,” the suddenly thoughtful Crown Prince mused. “The magical protections against high-speed kinetic weapons you reported.”

The Emperor shot his son a slightly disapproving glance, and Pluto hid a smile. _Gotcha — you have at least the shrine bugged. Probably my home and office, and the homes of the rest of the Senshi as well. And from what you said earlier about the Amazons, the new Cat Café. And I can’t imagine Ranma’s apartment isn’t covered as well._

“Very well,” the Emperor said. “We will make the preparations you have requested, and await your word to initiate the migration.”

“Oh, no need to wait on my word, Your Majesty,” Pluto said. “I’ll ask Ku Lon for the necessary contact information to give your people and have her send forewarning, and when your surveillance hears the Princess give the word your people can start.”

Emperor Akihito relaxed enough to give a slight chuckle, and rose, his son and Pluto a second behind him. “Very well, when we receive the word. And now I believe we have kept you long enough. You had an exciting time earlier today, and even with the Senshi’s amazing recuperative abilities I imagine you would like some more time to rest.”

“You are right, Your Majesty, thank you,” Pluto acknowledged, and again gave the bow of an equal to the Emperor and a slightly shallower one to the Crown Prince.

The two returned the bows, then as she turned away, the Emperor said, “One last question before you go — how long have you known of our surveillance?”

Pluto turned back and studied the old man for a long moment, then shrugged. “Since minutes after the moment in my kitchen when everything changed — before that, the futures had never called for you or your heirs to bring that surveillance to my attention, at least not enough to make me aware of it. After this current problem is settled we will discuss the _real_ reason you wished to speak with me.” And with that, she _stepped_ out of the meeting room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from the song by the Police – Sting's commented that he's a little surprised at the number of people that play a song at weddings that's essentially about a stalker.


	6. Preparations

One of the oddest features of Japanese cinema is the old pre-movie short feature, and even there it is only a vestige. Oddly enough, that vestige is solely of a mythical group of teenage girls that turn into magical warriors and fight demons for Love and Justice. The series has been running for years, with the actresses playing the girls never changing and so aging from young teenagers to young women as the series progresses, and the series itself has changed over time to reflect that (for example, in the beginning the girls would strike unusual poses and make melodramatic speeches before charging into combat, but that disappeared as the girls grew older).

New material comes out sporadically, with a flurry of new episodes interspersed by long periods of drought, but what does come out is technically incredible, the special effects easily outclassing anything anyone else in the world is producing. There have been numerous attempts to learn who is making the short clips in order to learn how the special effects are produced and whether they would be commercially viable on a larger scale, but all attempts to discover the producer have failed. The current belief is that some fabulously rich (and somewhat eccentric) businessman is funding their production and keeping his identity a secret to avoid damaging his reputation, and speculation is rampant in the industry as to who it might be, but in truth nobody knows.

The clips are never rerun after their initial appearance in theaters and have never been shown on television or in theaters outside of Japan ...

— “Quirks and Oddities of Japanese Cinema,” published in _Hollywood Today_ , Jan. 9, 2008

* * *

Ranma blearily opened her eyes at the sound of hammering on the apartment door — well, it _seemed_ like hammering to the slightly groggy redhead.

Lying beside her in their bed, Akane groaned and glanced over at the clock on their bedstand. “Who on earth could be here at this time of the morning?” she growled as she swung her legs over and sat up. _Especially since we stayed up so late last night making up for the school nights — it’s a weekend, dammit!_

Throwing on a robe, the brunette staggered out to the front door and cracked it open to see who was in the hall, then opened it wide and stepped back for Chibi-Usa and Hotaru as Ranma appeared in the bedroom door. “All right, what are you two doing here so early?” Akane growled.

“Early?” Hotaru asked, glancing at the clock on the wall.

“Well, it’s early if ya didn’t get ta sleep ‘til after midnight,” Ranma said, walking over to the fridge and pulling out a pitcher of water.

“Midnight? Was there a good movie on?” Chibi-Usa asked innocently, then started laughing when Ranma and Akane blushed, to be joined a few moments later by a nonplused Hotaru.

Hastily, Akane asked, “So what _are_ you doing here this early? The workout isn’t supposed to start for three hours.”

“There’s a movie matinee today at the local theater, and we thought if we got practice in early we could catch it,” Hotaru said as Chibi-Usa fought her laughter down to giggles.

Ranma made a face, and Hotaru quickly added. “It’s not a romance this time, it’s actually an American film called Gettysburg, about one of the big battles of their civil war around a hundred and fifty years ago. I’m attending for a history class, and could use some company.”

“A battle, hmm?” a suddenly interested Ranma mused, then nodded. “Sure, why not? Let’s get changed, me an’ Akane can eat after the workout.”

The redhead headed back to the bedroom, and Akane gave their two friends a grateful look. “Thanks, guys, I’ve been trying to come up with ways to get Ranma out of the apartment without being obvious,” she whispered, and the other two members of the Three Musketeers smiled back as the three started back to join Ranma.

“Kind of figured after last weekend’s lunch,” Chibi-Usa whispered back. “No problem, what are friends for?”

In the almost empty movie theater, Akane winced as the wooden armrest between her and Ranma creaked, and Hotaru, on Ranma’s other side, glanced at her friend in concern. Ranma noticed neither, her face pale and her eyes glued to the short news reel playing before the movie, chronicling the latest fight between the Senshi and the Monsters of the Week.

Ranma tensed even more as Sailor Moon attempted her purifying attack against four of the hairless, flying nightmares, then was forced to drop and roll and smashed into the nearest building, her long braid flipping around her, as her targets dove through where she’d been standing, completely unaffected. Slowly, the fuku-clad young woman forced herself to sit up, blood streaking her hair from her collision with the wall, even as the things circled for another attack.

Then Sailor Pluto was there, standing before her Princess, her Dead Scream racing to meet the attackers. Two of them were caught and blown aside to slam into the road with sickening finality. Another, Pluto caught with the Garnet Rod, knocking it off-course to smash head-first into the wall next to Sailor Moon, and the blonde scrambled backwards with a shriek as the corpse thudded to the concrete in front of her.

But that left the fourth, and Pluto staggered as it smashed into her, braking its dive at the last second to grasp her arm with the pairs of arms above and below its wings, as the massive stinger at the end of its tail stabbed through Pluto’s armor and deep into her side. The tail seemed to pulse and Pluto screamed, then suddenly the flying abomination was torn away as Moon’s kick caught it in the side and its wings opened to bring it to a hover a meter away — and there was sound like a gunshot from Ranma’s armrest snapping in half as lightning flashed in from off screen and caught the creature dead center. The thing _shrieked_ as the lightning coruscated around it, then seemed to come apart as the lightning exploded in all directions, engulfing Pluto and knocking her back against Moon to bring the two down in a heap.

The scene shifted to show Moon and Mars helping a shaking Pluto to her feet, Jupiter standing in front of them, and then again to show one after another of the bizarre flyers exploding in mid-air before changing to a pan across the aftermath of alien corpses and the blackened and cratered walls and street.

Hotaru leaned over to a now shaking Ranma and whispered, “You know everyone came out all right — we would have told you if anything serious had happened.”

“Serious!” Ranma managed to force out in a strangled whisper as Akane put an arm around her. “Big sis and Puu almost ...”

“They’re fine,” Hotaru said again, laying her hand on top of Ranma’s. “They just had to wait a bit before detransforming so they could heal.” When Ranma didn’t say anything, she added, “They’re really better than that now, usually — Moon was just having a bad day.” Giggling a little, “Moon was almost like when I first met her.”

Then the music started as the screen lit up with the feature film, and Hotaru broke off, giving Ranma’s hand a comforting squeeze.

/oOo\

Setsuna smiled as she stepped into the Cat Café, the emerald-haired woman in her usual business suit glancing around the new, larger restaurant. The lunch business was booming, if mostly male, and considering the way the waitresses were dressed it was no surprise — mixing excellent food with serious eye candy was always a working formula.

“Welcome to the Cat —” the greeting cut off and the cute (and almost certainly lethal) greeter’s eyes widened as she recognized the young-seeming woman before her from an earlier visit. She reflexively started to drop to a knee, but froze at Setsuna’s wave of negation.

“Not in public,” Setsuna whispered, glancing around at the customers, and the teenager nodded discreetly, again standing completely upright. “Is Ku Lon working?” Setsuna asked, and the greeter shook her head.

“No, Lady Pluto, she will be handling the evening rush,” she said quietly and Setsuna nodded.

“Good, I need to speak with her.”

With a nod, the greeter said, “Certainly, please follow me,” and led Setsuna toward the door to the café’s back rooms.

In a cozy private kitchen in the back, Elder Ku Lon and Setsuna relaxed around the table, Setsuna’s shoulders slumping slightly as the special blend of tea she sipped did its magic and muscles she hadn’t even realized were taut as bowstrings slowly relaxed.

Ku Lon smiled slightly at the sight. “I think you need to stop in here a little more often,” she suggested, but Setsuna regretfully shook her head.

“Perhaps later, after the current enemy is driven back,” she said with a sigh. “But right now, too many visits might be seen as intruding on Ranma’s bailiwick.”

Ku Lon looked thoughtful for a moment, then reluctantly nodded agreement. “So, if you aren’t here to simply visit an old friend, why are you here?” she asked.

Setsuna thought for a moment, then asked, “Tell me, have you had much luck in figuring out a way to move your tribe to Japan?” Ku Lon’s gaze sharpened and she shook her head, and Setsuna grinned. “Well, your problems are solved — the Emperor has agreed to have his people make the necessary arrangements and await Yasuko’s word for the migration to begin.”

“Yasuko?” Ku Lon repeated, then when Setsuna nodded asked, “And you believe that Yasuko will accept her role and ask that the move be made?”

“Yes,” Setsuna said. “I give it as little as one week, as late as a month, but the odds of Ranma doing just that approach near certainty.”

Ku Lon broke out in a relieved smile she would have let no other living soul see. “That is very good news, indeed. I was afraid that Ranma would never accept it.”

At that, Setsuna’s expression turned sober. “There’s a good reason for Ranma to accept it — we will need your warriors, as many as you can spare, in our final battle with the current enemy.” Looking intently at her old friend, she added softly, “This will be as brutal a battle as any you have fought with the Musk or Saffron’s people, Ku Lon, with the stakes considerably higher.”

Ku Lon’s smile vanished, but after a moment she simply nodded. “I know you would not ask this if it were not necessary, my old friend. Will the Princess be in that fight?” Setsuna nodded, and Ku Lon continued, “Then when you need us, the Joketsuzoku will be there.”

Setsuna gazed thoughtfully at her friend. “Ku Lon, you do understand that when your people move here they will not be able to maintain all of your ways. The Kisses, at least, will have to go. And while few of the men you meet will be the equals of your warriors in combat — though there are exceptions and not all of them Japanese, I’ll have to introduce you to the American Marines while they’re still here — the men you meet ... Japan may mostly have legal equality, but it’s still sexist in some ways, for many people. Being accepted as equals is the most you will be able to expect from any man you would care to know.”

Ku Lon shrugged. “True enough, and what of it? Yes, we have maintained our ways for three thousand years, and they have worked well for us. But our history extends back to a time that predates those traditions, and the Elders — enough of them, anyway — haven’t forgotten that those traditions are a means, not an end, to be modified when the means and end conflict.”

Then, straightening up, she said, “So, what do you need?”

Setsuna blew out her breath in relief. “Well, I’ll need contact information for Amazons both here and in China that I can pass on to the Emperor, so that we can be ready to move as soon as Yasuko gives the word. The Emperor will also need a count of the number of people that will be arriving, so he can arrange your new home ahead of time....”

/oOo\

Ranma gasped as she twisted violently to one side and one of the _things_ from the news reel flashed through the space she’d just vacated to smash into the building behind her with a sickening thump. She kicked a second away, then grabbed a third as it tried to grapple, bouncing back against the building as a palm smashed into its throat while the other hand caught the tail just above its stinger. As the thing convulsed, grabbing at its throat with its upper hands, she whirled, swinging it by its tail and its head smashed into a nearby lamp pole. Letting the corpse drop, Ranma stepped to the side, looking around the sky and seeing another two incoming, then ‘eeped’ as she stumbled over another corpse and dropped to her knees. Desperately, the redhead threw herself to the side to try to avoid the incoming flyers, but they were adjusting their trajectory and there were another four behind them.

And then Akane was there, straddling Ranma’s prone body, screaming a warcry as her claws vanished and her battle aura flared red, her old hammer materializing to smash both the first two aside with a single swing but it had pulled her off-balance and in her anger she’d ignored the four coming in behind and they smashed into her, bouncing her against the wall as the stingers stabbed in and the tails pulsed and the black-haired girl’s ear-splitting shriek of pain cut off with terrifying suddenness....

And Ranma shot bolt-upright in her bed, screaming Akane’s name. At the throat-ripping shriek Akane bolted out of her side of the bed that filled most of their room looking around wildly for the threat. Finding nothing, she turned back to her lover, only to find herself pinned to the wall by a desperately sobbing redhead. Instinctively, her arms came up around the smaller girl, and then their bedroom door slammed back as Nabiki rushed through, dressed only in the panties she usually slept in but gripping a baseball bat in one hand.

Nabiki quickly glanced around then focused on the pair. “I heard Ranma scream. Hell, I think the whole _building_ heard Ranma scream. What happened?”

“A nightmare, I think,” Akane responded gently picking up the girl still clutching at her and sitting down on the bed with the redhead in her lap.

“That must have been one seriously bad dream,” Nabiki said with a sigh. “I’ll be in the front room, join me when you get her calmed down.”

An hour later Akane quietly closed the bedroom door and walked out to join her sister. Nabiki looked up at her approach and smiled somewhat sleepily. “I don’t know if you noticed, but the police stopped by,” she said. “Someone called in Ranma’s scream and they wanted to make sure nobody’d been murdered. So, what _was_ that scream all about? And where’s Ranma?”

“Ranma’s asleep,” Akane said as she slumped down at the table. “And I don’t know what the scream was about. Obviously a nightmare of some sort, but you know Ranma — she wouldn’t talk about it, just kept repeating my name and crying like a baby, and wouldn’t let go of me until she cried herself to sleep. And that’s where I’m headed in just a minute, I don’t think it would be a good idea for Ranma to wake up alone.”

Wearily, she pushed herself to back to her feet. Then as she started back toward the bedroom, she paused for a moment and turned back. “Uh, Nabiki ... a baseball bat?”

Nabiki shrugged, slightly embarrassed. “When I invited you and Ranma to room with me I expected the old Ranma chaos to follow — I have no idea why it hasn’t — and I thought that maybe some of it might come around when Ranma wasn’t here.” She grimaced at Akane’s chuckle. “I know, I didn’t expect Ranma to not go back to school and practically never leave the apartment. And yes, I’m not a martial artist. But I thought that maybe whoever came around might get careless, and I’d get in a lucky shot.”

Akane walked back over and bent down to give her older sister a hug. “I don’t know if I ever said it before, but thanks for everything you’ve done for us. I don’t know what we would have done without you,” she whispered.

Nabiki returned the hug for a moment, then pushed them apart. “You’d have done well enough,” she said somewhat huskily, “if for no other reason than Meioh-san and Usagi would have seen to it. But you’re welcome.” The pageboy-haired girl watched her younger sister walk back to the bedroom, and as the door shut the warm smile she never let anyone see if she could help it appeared on her face for a brief moment before she sighed, got up and double-checked the lock on the door, then turned out the lights and headed for her own bedroom.

At the door to the apartment, Akane turned around. “Ranma, are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m sure!” Ranma almost shouted. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head slightly. “Look,” she said, “I know I had a bad night, but you aren’t missin’ school ‘cause of it. How’d that look as an excuse: ‘I’m sorry I missed class, but my lover had a bad dream’ — I don’t think that would go over too well. Besides, I’ll be fine, now shoo! But first ...” She pulled Akane into a long kiss, leaving the taller brunette slightly breathless when they broke apart. “I’ll see you when you get back this afternoon with Usa and Hotaru.”

Akane sighed but reluctantly nodded. “All right, I’ll see you then.” She picked up her school bag and left, and Ranma turned back to the apartment’s other occupant, still sitting at the table.

Nabiki just chuckled at her unspoken challenge. “Relax,” she said. “If Akane couldn’t convince you, I’m not even going to try. But ... you do have the phone number for the university and my schedule? They can run me down if you need anything.”

Ranma rolled her eyes. “Yes, mother, I have the phone number, and the schedule’s right by the phone.”

Nabiki laughed and stood up, grabbing her own book bag. “In that case I’ll be on my way. Have fun,” she called over her shoulder as she left.

Ranma walked over to the window and looked down into the street, watching as Akane turned the corner toward the school, and a minute later Nabiki crossed the street, headed for the bus station. Sighing, she turned away and headed for the mini-dojo.

An hour later, Ranma gave up — she hadn’t been able to summon the claws once, every time she’d gotten close the image of Akane buried in abominations, tails pulsing, would rise in her mind yet again. Walking back out to the front room table, she plopped down and stared at the wall. _Akane’s gonna insist on bein’ taught the Cat Claws, and I promised I’d clear her for combat when she’s ready — but how do I know? There’s no way that trainin’ here’ll get her ready — even if I was willin’ ta insult her like I used to, she’ll just ignore it like she has the few times I’ve goofed up. I never thought I’d_ want _her ta get angry at me, but ..._

Suddenly restless, Ranma got up and wandered over to the window again, looking down at the people walking by. _Okay, I can’t really get mad because she won’t let herself get mad at me anymore, at least not enough ta even yell at me, but I still need somethin’ for her ta get angry about, some way ta test her control, somethin’ ..._

Ranma stiffened as a sudden thought struck her. She whirled toward the apartment door, then forced herself to stop. _Get a grip, Ranma, ya don’t even know if he’s there._ Closing the door and turning back into the apartment, she walked over to the phone and dialed up a number she’d long since memorized but never used.

“Hi, Akari, it’s Ranma ... yeah, I’m doin’ fine, how ‘bout you? ... Good ta hear, from what I saw the last time I was there yer gonna need a new trophy case pretty quick. Listen, I haven’t seen Ryoga since I left Nerima, did he get the letter me an’ Akane sent ya to give him? ... Great! Listen, I need ta talk ta him, and I thought if he isn’t droppin’ in on me he might be seein’ you, instead. Is he there? ... Oh, well, could ya have him call me the next time he drops by? But in the morning around now ... sure, thanks, that’ll be a big help ... sure, you too, see ya later.”


	7. The End of the Long Drum Roll

“Hey Akane ... Akane ... Akane!”

Akane jerked from her reverie at the last shout and glanced around wildly, but it was simply Chibi-Usa and Hotaru and she sagged slightly in relief. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t sleep well last night and I’ve got something on my mind.”

“Why the bad night?” a concerned Hotaru asked softly.

Akane just shrugged. _I can’t tell them that it was probably the news reel that set Ranma off, they’d be horrified —_ Suddenly she froze as a thought struck her. “Uh, guys? The movie yesterday — was it really for a club, just an excuse to get Ranma out of the apartment?”

“Uh ...” The other two girls shared a glance and Chibi-Usa shrugged. “Well ... I really did need to see the movie for my club,” Hotaru responded, “but I saw it with my class on Saturday — yesterday was the second time I saw it. I knew it would be a perfect movie for Ranma — you know how she’s bored by most comedies, when she’s not constantly wincing, and she finds martial arts movies boring when they aren’t hilarious. And ...”

Her voice trailed off, and Chibi-Usa spoke up. “And when Hotaru mentioned the news reel I thought it would be a great way to show Ranma a little of what’s going on without breaking Baka-mama’s order not to tell her anything — the news reel was generally shown, after all.”

Akane sighed and rubbed at her temples, then chuckled. “Good thinking, guys, but let’s not do that again — Ranma had a nightmare last night, and I think it probably had to do with the news reel.”

“Why do you think so?” Chibi-Usa asked. “You told us that Ranma has nightmares every few weeks or so, what makes this one different?”

“Those ones usually involve cats or Happosai, I think,” Akane replied, “and they don’t have Ranma screaming so loudly the neighbors call the police. It took me an hour to get her calmed down enough to get back to sleep.”

The other two girls blanched. “Oh, Akane, I’m so sorry!” Hotaru wailed, and Akane smiled comfortingly as she laid a gentle hand on the smaller girl’s shoulder.

“Hey, it was a good idea, and you didn’t know what it would do to Ranma. Let’s just not do it again, okay?”

Both girls nodded vigorously, and then the bell marking the beginning of the school sounded and the trio hurried to their first class.

/oOo\

In the park closest to their apartment, Ranma moved through her longest, most vigorous and complicated kata at full speed, the ki-claws on both her hands flashing through the air. Memories of the nightmare of almost a week before, along with the fear and heartbreak that had accompanied it, floated through her mind without disturbing the calm at her core. Finally, the redhead reached the end and grinned as she gazed down at the claws still firmly in place, the pleasure of the moment no more allowed to disturb her core as the nightmare’s terror had.

Looking up at the Three Musketeers leaning against nearby trees, Ranma allowed the claws to vanish as she shouted her joy, pumping a fist in the air. “Yes, at last!”

Akane felt her heart go cold but kept the fear off her face and even forced a smile as she stood and strode toward her lover. “So you think you’re ready?” she asked, then gasped as Ranma ran up to her and swung her around as the redhead laughed.

Finally, when both girls were dizzy with whirling around, they collapsed and stared up at the sky for a moment before it was obscured by the faces of the other two girls.

“So, is it time to bring over the costume?” Chibi-Usa asked slyly, and Hotaru and Akane joined her laughter as Ranma groaned before joining them.

“Yeah, let’s do it,” she said as she sat up when the laughter died down.

/\

Haruka looked up from where she sat cuddled with Michiru when the front door to their home flew open and the two watched through the doorway to the front hall as Chibi-Usa and Hotaru rushed in, only pausing long enough to throw off their shoes before rushing toward their currently shared bedroom.

Less than a minute later the two rushed back to the door carrying a bag and were putting their shoes back on when Haruka spoke up. “All right, kids, what’s the rush? And what’s in the bag?” she asked curiously, and the two teenagers looked up, startled.

“It’s Ranma’s costume!” Hotaru caroled. “She’s finally ready!”

Michiru’s eyebrows rose and she straightened. “So you actually put together a costume for her?” she asked. “And how did you get Ranma’s measurements?”

“Uh ... we compared it to the clothes she normally wears, especially her underwear,” Chibi-Usa said uncertainly. “Ranma wasn’t really cooperating much.”

“Or at all,” Hotaru muttered under her breath.

Michiru looked thoughtfully at the two girls for a moment, then nodded. “All right, get in the car. Haruka and I will be joining you.”

“Huh?” the two girls asked, and Michiru smiled calmly.

“I’m sure you did a fine job considering your limits, but the results might need some fine-tuning so we’re coming so I can mark whatever changes we need to make. So head to the car, and we’ll be there in a minute.”

Chibi-Usa and Hotaru rushed out the door, and the normally cultured, serene Michiru whirled where she sat, raising a palm to accept a very rare high five from her surprised lover. “Yes!”

/\

Ranma kept her smile firmly in place as she looked at herself in the mirror, Akane, Haruka and Michiru standing off to the right doing their best not to laugh at her threadbare act while Hotaru and Chibi-Usa gushed.

“It’s perfect!” Hotaru caroled. “The white leotard and blue skirt to show you’re linked to Sailor Moon, the red boots, gloves and headband to give some contrast, your hair in a ponytail instead of a braid so it won’t be completely obvious who you are. And no jewelry like you said, plus some red spandex bicycle shorts just in case the knee-length skirt isn’t long enough.”

Ranma closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then glared toward the trio to her right when they failed to suppress their giggles. With a sigh, she turned to her two friends. “Not bad, you two,” she managed to get out with a straight face and not a hint of a growl. “Just two things.”

“Yeah? What are they?” Chibi-Usa asked, doing her best not to laugh herself.

“First, I’m gonna be wearing a bra with this.”

“Whoa, since when did you care about feminine modesty?” Akane asked.

“Since seein’ that news reel — there’s no way I’m gonna have my boobs bouncin’ around fer all the world ta see, an’ a skin-tight top with a bra isn’t much better,” Ranma said with a growl.  Akane finally lost control of her laughter, falling back against the wall with her arms wrapped around stomach, quickly joined by the two adults.

Ranma glared at her lover, then turned to the now furiously blushing duo behind her.

“So, maybe a short, blue sleeveless jacket?” Chibi-Usa asked. “That would at least cover up the bra lines from the back and sides, and the way you bounce — uh, move around — when you fight along with how whoever films us hangs back, close-up shots from the front probably won’t happen ... maybe ...”

Ranma thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “I guess that’ll work, as good as could be expected.”

“And the second thing?” Hotaru asked as her blush faded.

Ranma looked back over her shoulder as she turned her back to the mirror. “Was the big red bow on the back of my skirt really necessary?” she asked plaintively, and now it was Chibi-Usa’s turn to chortle as Hotaru looked puzzled.

“But all the Senshi have one, that’ll definitely link you to the rest of us,” Hotaru said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and the redhead sighed.

“Okay, I guess I’ll keep it,” Ranma said, and Hotaru threw her arms around her from the back.

“I’m so glad you like it,” she enthused, and with an effort Ranma suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

“At least there’s no bow in the middle of my chest,” she muttered.

“So what are you going to call yourself?” Haruka asked.

“Call myself?” Ranma responded, confused, and Michiru nodded her agreement.

“Yes — we can’t be calling you by your name in the middle of a battle, someone might be able to figure out who you are. From that, they would be able to figure out who _we_ are.”

“Good point,” Ranma said, a thoughtful look on her face.

“I know, we can call you Sailor Terra!” Chibi-Usa said enthusiastically. “With Tuxedo Kamen being the Earth’s protector nobody else is going to show up with the title.”

After thinking about it, Ranma shook her head. “Nooo ...” she said slowly, “I don’t think so. I’m not _really_ a Senshi even if I look a lot like one, so let’s not go with a name that sounds like one.”

“How about Vanguard?” Haruka suggested.

“Vanguard?” Akane questioned, and the short-haired blonde nodded.

“Sure. The vanguard of an army is the part that’s closest to the enemy, and with Ranma’s lack of ranged attacks that where she’ll be whenever she’s in a fight.”

“Vanguard,” Ranma repeated thoughtfully, then nodded firmly. “I like it — Vanguard it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from the drum roll armies used to use to call soldiers into ranks when marching off to battle.


	8. Call to Arms

In the afternoon sun on the roof of the school attended by the Three Musketeers, Ranma danced. Her father would have been furious to see it — Genma saw any use of the Art that wasn’t practice or combat a perversion of its core purpose — but as Ranma had struggled over the past almost three month to master the Cat Fist she had tried various ways to calm her emotions while in combat, and using katas as meditation had been one of those ways. It had proven a dead end, the meditative state impossible to maintain in combat mode, but even so the redhead had found the meditative dance a pleasure in and of itself — though of course she had never let Akane see her dancing, that wouldn’t have fit her persona.

Reaching the end of the kata, Ranma held the final pose for a few moments, then relaxed. Without turning around, she called out, “Ya might as well come out, Shampoo. Let’s talk.”

Behind her, the purple-haired teenage girl flipped up onto the roof from where she had been crouched on the fire escape. “How did you know I was there?” she asked, and Ranma shrugged as she turned around with a smile.

“It’s just something I picked up while teachin’ myself ta use my ki without infusin’ it with emotions. It’s kinda weird — like I can feel other people’s ki against my skin, recognize emotions an’ even personalities if I know ‘em well enough. So, what are ya doin’ here? Business not keepin’ ya occupied at yer new restaurant?”

Xian Pu hesitated, then shook her head with a sigh. _Trust Ranma to come up with a completely new way to use ki when the old one isn’t working for her anymore!_ “No, business is fine — better than fine, actually,” she said. “But the restaurant isn’t why we’re in Tokyo, and I have my duty.”

Ranma stiffened. “Yer spyin’ on me?”

“No, I’m _guarding_ you,” Xian Pu corrected, and Ranma barked a laugh.

“Yeah, like I need a bodyguard!”

Xian Pu joined in Ranma’s laughter. “True,” she finally said, “if there’s anyone in Tokyo, or Japan for that matter, that needs a bodyguard less than you I haven’t heard of her. Still, it is our duty to our Princess, and that’s that.”

Ranma’s laughter choked off and she started to scowl. “Don’t call me that. And how long have ya been ‘guarding’ me?”

“Since shortly before the new Cat Café opened,” Xian Pu admitted. “Of course, you’ve been making it very easy for us — I think I could count the number of times you’ve been out of your apartment in that time on one hand,” she added, carefully suppressing a look of concern. Then, as her careful gaze caught of Ranma’s slight wince, hastily changed the subject.

“You aren’t wearing your costume. If your Senshi friends get the call, won’t it slow you all down if they have to wait while you change?”

“How do ya know about the costume? I thought ya said ya weren’t spyin’ on me?” Ranma asked suspiciously, but Xian Pu just shrugged.

“In this case, is there really all that much of a difference? One of us was watching when you tried it on—you weren’t as careful as you should have been when it came to window curtains. But then, you usually aren’t — even when it’s you and Akane.” Then, as Ranma started to blush furiously, Xian Pu added with a grin, “But as long as _we_ are the ones watching, you aren’t going to have to worry about anyone else peeping through your windows. And it’s not like either of you have anything we haven’t seen before — even Mu Tse.”

At that Xian Pu started to blush herself, in spite of her own happy smile. Shaking her head, she said, “Any road, where’s the costume?”

Ranma sighed. “I guess I might as well show ya,” she said, and blurred into motion, whirling in circles too fast to follow even as she seem to go into contortions. In seconds it was over, and Ranma stood in her Vanguard costume, braid undone and hair tied up in a pony-tail, before Xian Pu’s wide-eyed stare.

“How did you _do_ that?” the Amazon whispered in awe, and Ranma’s old cocky ‘hey, it’s me’ grin flashed across her face.

“Actually, I got it from you Amazons,” she said offhandedly, and laughed at Xian Pu’s disbelieving glare. “No, really — it’s a combination of Mousse’s Hidden Weapons technique ta stash the clothes I’m not wearin’ and the Chestnut Fist the ol’ ghoul taught me.”

“The Chestnut Fist?!” Xian Pu repeated, and the redhead nodded.

“Yup. The Chestnut Fist is all about trainin’ yer muscles ta move without thinkin’ about it, with the speed fueled by yer ki — but the muscle memory doesn’t just need ta be fer hittin’ someone. I just needed ta practice makin’ the change a couple dozen times or so ta get it memorized.”

Ranma vanished into the whirlwind again and emerged in her usual red and black Chinese-style clothes. “Well, since yer here, ya up to a friendly spar?” she asked, and Xian Pu’s eyes lit up.

“Always!” she enthused, and Ranma laughed and moved toward the center of the roof for room with Xian Pu following.

/oOo\

Inside the school building, Akane did her best to listen to the teacher while maintaining the untouched core at her center, even as her thoughts kept wandering to the petite redhead she knew would be on the roof by now, after her morning practice ... waiting.

For a moment, the worry that had been haunting her ever since Ranma’s decision that she was ready threatened to overwhelm her calm, and the brunette closed her eyes for a moment as she allowed the worry to wash over her and recede. _Relax, Akane,_ she told herself as she again focused on the teacher. _Right now, all the Senshi are facing are animals, however powerful. And soon the two of you will be facing them together._

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye Akane saw Chibi-Usa jerk slightly and the brunette’s calm center shivered, then shattered as her fear for Ranma — almost panic — again surged, as her pink-haired friend went into her ‘sick’ act, drawing the teacher’s attention and quickly getting permission to go home. As Chibi-Usa walked out of the class, Akane closed her eyes and fought and failed to renew her calm.

“ ... Akane?”

Opening her eyes, Akane found the teacher looking at her concernedly. “What was that, Kasuse-sensei? I’m afraid I didn’t hear you,” she said as she blushed slightly from embarrassment.

“I said, are you feeling well? You look a little pale, and I know you and Usa spend a lot of time together, perhaps you’ve caught whatever she has.”

For a brief moment, Akane seriously considered going along with Kasuse’s concerns and joining her friends, but fought back the temptation. _No, not yet — you aren’t ready, all you could do is watch, and give Ranma something to worry about besides the fight. Your time will come later._ Regretfully, Akane shook her head. “Thank you for your concern, Kasuse-sensei, but I’ll be fine.”

Kasuse gave her a doubtful look, but returned to the lesson, and Akane glanced out the window as she slowly regained her calm, letting go of the fear that had choked her, letting it drift. _Please, Ranma, whatever you’re facing, for once please be careful._

/oOo\

Ranma rolled away from Xian Pu’s feint and pounce, bounced to her feet, and was bracing herself for a counter-charge when suddenly Sailor Chibi-Moon leaped over the edge and landed on the roof.

“Ranma, we’re on!” the pink-haired Senshi shouted, then froze at the sight of Xian Pu even as Sailor Saturn joined them. “Who’s she?” Chibi-Moon asked, staring suspiciously at the Amazon.

“Chibi-Moon, Saturn, this is Shampoo, a ... I guess she’s a friend, from Nerima. She was one of the Fiancée Brigade before ... well, you know.”

“Oh, right, she’s the one that was trying to keep you from getting married by making Akane jealous,” Saturn said, brightening, and Chibi-Moon relaxed a bit.

“But what’s she doing her?” she asked, and Ranma chuckled weakly, reaching back to tug on her braid.

“Later,” the redhead said. “Is there another attack goin’ on?”

The two Senshi blushed. “Oh, right!” Chibi-Moon said. “About eight blocks east right now — Mars and Venus are already there.”

Ranma grinned, and a few seconds later was in her Vanguard costume. “Okay, let’s go show ‘em how it’s done!”


	9. Skirmish

Sailor Mars snarled as yet another fireball exploded uselessly against the monster’s covering of large blue-green feathers, the feathers as pristine and scorch-free after as they had been after the previous three attempts. _It’s not fair!_ The black-haired Senshi wailed, leaping back as the seven-meter thing whirled toward her on its two legs and charged, its head snaking toward her at the end of its long neck. _This is the_ second _monster immune to fire! Please, kami, don’t let them all be like this!_

Then a golden chain whirled in from the side and wrapped around the bird-snake’s legs, only to snap almost instantly. The monster turned toward the blond Senshi five meters away, opening its short muzzle to expose blunt teeth as more fog poured out and over Sailor Venus, making her cough and wave her hand in front of her face even as the vapor faded away.

Venus fired off another Love-Me chain as she stepped back, shaking her head a little, and Mars fought down a scream of frustration even as she circled around to join her partner — what did that girl think she was _doing_?

Then the _third_ wave of vapor from the monster enveloped the blonde and she wavered and abruptly fell backward onto her butt, and — started giggling?

Mars’s heart went cold as Venus waved cheerfully at the approaching feather-covered thing, and it was lowering its head, its muzzle gaping wide — and Mars was there trying to pull Venus to her feet, with a perfect target, and suddenly the monster seemed to be breathing fire as her latest fireball exploded in the back of its mouth. It reared back, almost standing upright and taking two earthshaking steps back, neck laying back along its back, then lowered back to its apparently normal horizontal stance as its head again snaked forward and it roared.

“Wow, cool!” Venus enthused.

Mars groaned, again trying to pull the blonde to her feet. “Come on, Venus, we have to get out of here!”

Venus turned a somewhat vacant look at her black-haired partner. “Huh?”

/\

On the roof of the building above the two Senshi, Vanguard took another quick look around and nodded — apparently only one monster, though the one over two stories high when it stood upright was quite enough. “Saturn, get down there and give Venus and Mars cover. Shampoo, go with her, help Mars get Venus out of there — but _don’t_ breath that smoke stuff that monster was putting out. If it’s enough ta turn Venus into a giggling idiot, I don’t wanna think what it’ll do to a normal human.”

The two nodded and leaped down to join Mars and Venus, and Vanguard turned to Chibi-Moon. “Moon, I want ya ta distract it, give the others a chance ta get Venus outa there. If ya can, lure it over ...” The ponytailed redhead looked over the battleground again, then pointed across the street. “Over there, under those streetlights. Get it ta keep its head down, too, and that’d be great.”

Chibi-Moon nodded. “Gotcha, boss, consider it done!” The pink-haired Senshi stepped to the edge of the roof, then leaped to a streetlight, swung across the street to another, then dropped to the sidewalk. “Hey, Ugly, over here!” she called out.

Even as Chibi-Moon fired off her first attack, Vanguard turned her attention back to the four below her and nodded in satisfaction — the bird-snake was rebounding back with a shriek, blood dripping from what must have been some broken teeth, from an encounter with Saturn’s Silence Wall. Then Chibi-Moon’s pink hearts hammered home at the base of the thing’s snake-like neck, and Vanguard couldn’t stop from chuckling — as effective as that attack could be, she was sure glad that wasn’t _her_ attack, the embarrassment alone would probably do as much damage to her as the attack did to her target.

Still, as silly-looking as it was, the attack had accomplished its purpose as the monster whirled away from the four girls in front of it and strode toward the pink-haired Senshi off to the side. _Move it, Ranma, or you’ll be late for the party!_ Vanguard thought as she wrapped herself in the Silent Thief and ran along the roof to the corner and dropped silently to the ground behind the bird-snake — only to freeze as it whirled around, head weaving from side to side, searching. Its gaze passed over the cloaked girl crouching in front of it, and then another series of pink hearts hammered into its ass and the thing whirled again to start toward Chibi-Moon.

Vanguard glanced over to the other four, and sighed with relief as she saw Xian Pu and Mars pulling Venus into an alley, Venus singing a _very_ bawdy song badly off-key, as a furiously blushing Saturn slowly backed up while keeping herself and her Silence Glaive between the other three girls and the monster. _Good, they’re safe. And Hotaru’s remembered her training, at least ta holding the pig-sticker right — not something ya can always count on when ya get inta real combat._

Still cloaked, Vanguard began running toward the monster, only to cartwheel to the side as it again whirled, its head whipping toward her. Even as she dodged its head followed her, until she leaped for a second floor fire escape even as yet another line of pink hearts smashed into its side. The beast ignored the fresh attack for a moment, head sliding along a little above the ground, searching, but on finding nothing it again turned back to Chibi-Moon, roaring as it stalked toward the girl.

Up on the fire escape, Vanguard paused and thought for a moment. _Alright, it’s got some way a’ noticing targets besides sight — but it needs the target ta be moving, and probably on the ground, it didn’t notice Usa when she used the light poles ta get across the street, an’ didn’t follow me up ta here. Right. Okay, Usa’s almost got it in position, Ranma, so get a move on!_

Leaping from the fire escape to the one the next building over, then to a streetlight, and another, Vanguard quickly got into position on the streetlight above where she’d told Chibi-Moon to lead the monster even as the pink-haired Senshi backed up past Vanguard’s pole, again dodging the monster’s head whipping forward on its long neck. _Good, good, almost there ..._ Vanguard thought, _oh, crap!_ Chibi-Moon had stepped back several more paces, the bird-snake following, when her foot cam down in a pothole and she tumbled backwards, instantly tucking into a roll for more distance.

Even as the beast strode forward, head thrusting toward the rolling girl, Vanguard threw herself out and down, dropping her cloak, and Mars and Saturn, charging across the street from where they’d been watching at the alley’s mouth, gasped as their blue-skirted friend seem to appear out of thin air even as she landed right at the junction of the bird-snake’s neck and body where its shoulders would be if it had any arms. Even as the beast reared, its head whipping around toward the new threat, Vanguard’s glowing ki-claws flashed into view and she swung once, slicing across the top of the neck through the beast’s vertebrae, and again across the bottom from side to side where she hoped its arteries would be. The pseudo-Senshi was awarded with a spray of blood tracking down the building beside them even as the beast collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut and the girl threw herself off and out into the street, rolling away from the dying bird-snake.

Rolling to her feet, Vanguard ran around the thrashing monster and up to Chibi-Moon. “Moon, are you all right?” she asked worriedly as she pulled the other girl to her feet, and Chibi-Moon nodded, staring wide-eyed at the thrashing beast dying yards away from them even as Mars and Saturn joined them.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she gasped, still staring at the monster, and Vanguard followed her gaze.

“Not used ta the things ya kill sticking around, are ya?” she asked, and Chibi-Moon shook her head even as her face turned greenish as more blood sprayed across the wall, street, cars....

“And who are you supposed to be?” asked an also green-tinted Mars, and Vanguard grinned at her as Saturn stepped beside the ponytailed redhead and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Say hello to Vanguard, the Senshi’s newest ally,” the Senshi of Destruction said quietly.

“V-V-Vanguard?” a voice stuttered behind them, and the four girls turned to find a pale and shaking Sailor Moon staring wide-eyed at her younger sister.


	10. A Leader, Not an Autocrat

Sailor Moon stormed into the family room at the Hikawa Shrine, followed by her younger sister and Sailors Chibi-Moon, Saturn, and Mars carrying a sleeping Venus. Once in the center of the room, Moon whirled to face the others, her braid whipping around her, the anger that had been building as the group had roof-hopped to the shrine ready to explode, but before she could say anything Mars spoke up.

“I’m going to take Venus to my bedroom, and ask Grandfather to watch while we talk. _Don’t_ start until I get back.”

Moon glowered at the other Senshi, but nodded. Mars disappeared farther back into the shrine with her burden while the rest sat down, and returned a few minutes later. She took her own seat, and Moon was just opening her mouth when Setsuna stepped out of nowhere.

“Hello, everyone,” the emerald-haired woman said as she walked over to sit down in an empty chair between Moon and Vanguard. “I thought this discussion could use a referee, and while you were going to do your best, Mars,” she added with a smile toward the black-haired Senshi, “you have a bit of a temper. I suspect I can do a better job.”

Mars nodded her acceptance with ill-hidden relief, and Setsuna looked around at the angry Moon, defensive Saturn and Chibi-Moon, and determined Vanguard, and sighed. “For starters,” she said, “why don’t you all de-transform? Things might be more comfortable that way.”

The rest exchanged glances and stood, and a few minutes later the Senshi had been replaced by ordinary-looking young women and girls. Usagi was staring open-mouthed at Ranma as the petite redhead came out of her apparent whirlwind in her usual black pants and red shirt, finishing rebraiding her pigtail. “How ...” the long-braided blonde managed to get out, and Ranma smirked slightly.

“Just a couple a’ ki techniques I picked up from the Amazons,” she said offhandedly.

“Isn’t it cool?” Chibi-Usa enthused, then shrank a little, Hotaru doing the same beside her, as Usagi turned to them, her simmering anger finally exploding.

“I gave an order Ranma wasn’t to be involved!” Usagi shouted. “You deliberately disobeyed!”

“Uh, no, we didn’t,” Hotaru almost whispered, then shrank slightly from Usagi’s glare but continued, “You said you didn’t want Ranma helping, and that we weren’t to tell her anything about the enemy. We haven’t, not a word.”

“And I suppose it was just a coincidence that Ranma showed up at the battle,” Usagi growled.

“No, it wasn’t — I followed them,” Ranma said, then continued as her older sister looked her way, “I was on top a’ the school and me and Shampoo followed them when they got the call for help.”

Usagi’s angry glare faded, but Ranma steeled herself as she sensed the building worry her sister’s anger had been keeping at bay. “Look, Usagi,” she said almost pleadingly, “I’m a Martial Artist — it’s my _duty_ ta help when the innocent and helpless are in danger, if I can. And now I can.”

“Besides,” she added, her eyes falling as she reached back and tugged on her braid, “if somethin’ was ta happen to ya, an’ I could a’ stopped it but wasn’t there, I’d ... I’d ...”

Usagi blinked a bit at suddenly damp eyes, then rose and walked over to the redhead. Crouching down in front of Ranma, she reached out and took her sister’s hand. “Ranma,” she said, “I understand that, really I do. But I have my Senshi form’s regeneration abilities, I’ve even brought the others back from the dead before. You don’t have our regeneration and with your immunity to magic ... I know you’re good — better than any of us, really, but what if the enemy gets lucky? And it could be in a fight where we don’t even really need you!” Glancing over at the other Senshi, their leader asked, “This afternoon, could we have gotten by without Ranma’s help?”

The others exchanged glances, then Chibi-Usa hesitantly said, “Well ... probably. She gave us orders as soon as she saw what was happening, but they were what we’d have done anyway. And with the training Ranma’s been giving Hotaru in using her glaive ... it would have taken longer, but we’d probably have gotten by.” The other two Senshi that had been there reluctantly nodded their agreement.

“You see, Ranma?” Usagi said, turning back to the redhead, but Ranma was shaking her head.

“Yeah, ya probably coulda gotten by without me this fight, but that’s _this_ fight — what about the next? Ya ain’t gonna know until ya get there. Besides,” she continued when Usagi began to turn toward Setsuna, “even if ya could I still need ta be there, ya aren’t gonna be in a fight without me if I can help it!”

Usagi desperately searched for something — anything — that might change Ranma’s mind, and tears began running down her cheeks as she came up blank.

At the sight, Ranma’s determined expression softened, and she gently squeezed Usagi’s hand. “Look, big sis, like Nabiki said, it’s nice ta have someone tryin’ ta keep me _out_ of a fight because you’re worried about me, fer a change. And I know how ya feel — the thought of Akane gettin’ involved in this scares me like almost nothin’ else. But I promised her that she could join as soon as I thought she was ready — she has the right an’ duty ta help, an’ so do I.”

After a long moment, Usagi nodded. “All right, I’ll get you a communicator, and have Ami add you to the alert network,” she said. “But you _are_ more fragile than we are, so I want you to stay out of the actual fighting unless we really need you, understand? And the same rule would apply to Akane once she’s gotten good enough,” the Senshi leader added hastily as Ranma started clouding up.

Ranma froze, her mouth open to protest, then slowly nodded. “Yeah, I guess that sounds reasonable,” she said reluctantly, and Usagi broke out in a broad smile.

“Great!” she said, pulling Ranma out of her chair and into a solid hug.

Then, as the two separated, Usagi paused, struck by a sudden thought. Giving Chibi-Usa and Hotaru a searching glance, she asked, “Did you two probably-budding conspirators mention the Life Dancers to Ranma?” When the two girls shook their heads, she turned back to her sister. “The Life Dancers were the Moon Kingdom’s ki-users. They weren’t fighters, but they _were_ healers. I’ll tell Ami to get with you, show you what the Mercury Computer has on them.”

Ranma’s eyes lit up, and she nodded vigorously. “You bet!” she said, and Usagi chuckled as she returned to her seat. But her chuckles died abruptly when Ranma continued, “And now, tell me about this enemy we’re fightin’.”

With a sigh, Usagi nodded to Setsuna. “Setsuna, you’re the one that’s actually seen the enemy, why don’t you tell her what we know?”

/\

“So, Puu,” Ranma said thoughtfully when Setsuna finished her briefing, “the real threat is the final attack, when they actually invade instead a’ just probe?”

Setsuna nodded, and Ranma gazed down at the crude map she’d drawn of the final battlefield. “So, they’re gonna be comin’ outta this central ... uh, tunnel entrance ... but only two at a time. But there’s gonna be almost a couple hundred warriors already out, bounced in with the ... anchors, ya said?” Setsuna nodded. “So we gotta deal with those couple hundred trained, armed and armored men, stop more from comin’ out, and destroy these ten anchors.”

“Correct.” Setsuna agreed. “But the ten anchors are self-regenerating, and so long as one of them is still active the portal will remain open. That is what is most likely to defeat us. Especially because Hotaru won’t simply be able to close off the tunnel with her Silence Wall — one of the things the Confederacy’s watchers have been doing is analyzing our powers, and by the time they invade they’ll have a counter for the Wall.”

Ranma gazed thoughtfully at her hand drawn map. “What we really need are more fighters,” she mused, then suddenly stiffened. Jerking to her feet, she turned away from the Senshi and stared silently at the wall. The Senshi exchanged glances, then as the minutes passed Usagi opened her mouth only to shut it when Setsuna shook her head.

“What happens if we lose?” Ranma finally asked, back still turned to the room.

“Japan is overrun in short order,” Setsuna responded. “The rest of the planet takes decades, but in the end the entire planet will be conquered.”

Ranma’s shoulders slumped. “Alright,” she said in a low voice, “what we really need is more fighters, and I know where ta get ‘em — the Amazons.”

“What, you mean the people that made your life hell for years?” Rei growled.

“Yeah, them — the people that think I’m their princess. If I ask them ta help, they’ll help,” Ranma agreed.

“And what’s wrong with that?” a confused Chibi-Usa asked.

“ ‘cause I’ll have ta ask them as their princess,” the redhead whispered, unconsciously hugging herself. “Even if I pretend I’m not, that’s how they’ll take it. There’ll be no gettin’ away from it then.”

Setsuna smiled sadly as she watched her young friend, her eyes damp, while the other Senshi exchanged uncomfortable glances. Then, Usagi rose and walked up to her little sister and hugged her from behind. “I know,” she whispered. “You don’t want to be responsible for all those lives, the ones that may die in the fight, the civilians that will look to you for guidance and protection. I didn’t, either. But sometimes you just don’t have a choice, not a real one.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ranma said, relaxing back against Usagi for a moment before straightening and breaking the hug, stepping away. “I just don’t know how I can take care of them like they’ll need.”

Walking back to her chair and the map she’d dropped, she picked it up and nodded. “All right, when the warriors and anchors get here, we’re waitin’ for ‘em. We, along with some others I’ll recruit bounce right over the circle they’ll have around the anchors. You guys go after than anchors, an’ I’ll make sure no more warriors get outta the tunnel. Then, when they turn around ta deal with us, _that’s_ when the Amazons attack them from behind.”

Usagi looked at Rei, and the priestess-in-training nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds good,” she said, and Usagi nodded.

“Okay, I’ll ask Cologne ta get her people here as soon as she can right after practice,” Ranma said, then stiffened and looked over at the clock and shot to her feet. “I gotta get home! Akane will be getting out of school any minute, and she’s gonna be worried.” Looking over at the other two teenagers, she asked, “You two comin’ ta practice?”

Chibi-Usa and Hotaru immediately stood up. “Of course,” Chibi-Usa said.

“Don’t worry about telling Ku Lon,” Setsuna said as the three teenagers started for the door.

Ranma stopped and turned around, looking at Setsuna, and she continued, “I thought something like this might happen, so I set things up so that we could start bringing the tribe over as soon as you gave the word. Don’t worry, they’ll be here and well taken care of.”

“A’ course you’d know,” Ranma said ruefully. “By the way, how does yer Time Gates say ya were gonna destroy all ten anchors without me an’ the others?”

Setsuna hesitated, then finally sighed and shook her head. “We almost certainly weren’t,” she responded.

“What?!” the other Senshi shouted.

“But we obviously were going to win, how would that happen if we didn’t destroy the anchors?” Rei asked.

“Eventually, after we’d tried and almost certainly failed, Hotaru would have sealed the portal herself, from within the dimensional tunnel,” Setsuna answered.

“She can do that? Cool! If she could, why waste time tryin’ ta destroy the anchors?” Ranma asked with a grin, only to have the grin vanish because of the pain and self-hatred she was picking up from her Puu even as Setsuna’s eyes dropped.

“Because there’s no way to get her out of the tunnel when it collapses,” Setsuna said, staring at the floor with slow tears trickling down her face. “That’s the real reason why Usa’s Setsuna sent her here so early — months before the attacks even started — to give her and Hotaru as much time together, make Hotaru’s final weeks as happy as we could.”

The rest of the young women and girls stared at her in stunned silence. Then Hotaru smiled at Setsuna. “Thank you for thinking of me, and doing what you could,” she said softly, then walked back and knelt to pull the Senshi of Time into a hug. Looking back at the other two teenagers, she said, “You two go without me. I think Setsuna-mama and I need to spend some time together this afternoon.”


	11. Assuming Responsibility

As Akane ran through her most complicated kata, struggling to maintain the untouched calm at her core and the ki claws on her hands, her eyes again drifted to the right to her lover and her control shivered as she remembered again the moment when she’d walked through their apartment door to find the newly-arrived Ranma grinning at her, how she’d dropped her school bag and fastened onto the redhead like a limpet, tears rolling down her cheeks as her desperate fear had been replaced by gasping relief.

_Stop that! Ranma wasn’t even scratched, it was a cakewalk!_ she sternly told herself yet again as she faced forward, taking in the more neutral sight of Chibi-Usa running through the basic katas Ranma had been teaching her. Still, yet again, Akane couldn’t stop the thought from floating to the top, _But what about next time? And there_ will _be a next time ... and a time after that ... and after that ..._

The former Tendo’s eyes drifted to the left and again her calm control threatened to shatter, but this time for a very different reason as she looked at the purple-haired Amazon running through her own kata. Old, long-familiar jealousy roared through Akane, and she struggled to hold onto her center and let the emotion wash through her and out, to not grab onto it and focus it on the former rival (or so she’d thought at the time) that had outclassed her in every way that mattered and was doing it yet again!

This time, she failed. Her teeth ground together and her center vanished in a roil of hatred and jealousy and her hands bent into talons suddenly had nothing but harmless, short-cut fingernails on her fingertips. She broke off her kata and dropped to the floor, pulling her legs up into the lotus position (and where had Ranma picked _that_ up, she briefly wondered) as she fought to relax and regain control. _So Ranma let her join the fight, so what?_ You _are the one she loves,_ she told herself. _You’ve known that the slut — the girl’s a better fighter than you since you first met her, even if you couldn’t admit it. But soon, however badly she may trounce you in a spar she’ll never match you for sheer lethality in a real fight. And Ranma promised — as soon as you’re ready, you’re in. Trust her. Trust her honor._

Slowly, Akane’s inner turmoil faded and she was finally able to let the jealousy and anger wash away, her calm center returning. Opening her eyes, she lifted her hands, focused on her fingertips, and _willed_ , and her ki claws once again sprang into existence. Rising to her feet even as she allowed the still-fresh pleasure and wonder at the sight to wash over her without disturbing her core, she resumed her kata from where she’d left off and continued her practice.

/\

Ranma watched Akane out of the corner of her eye as she savored the emotion-laden ki rolling off her lover, and carefully restrained a smile as that emotion faded away until the ki was again pristine and the taller girl rose to her feet and resumed her kata. _Good, inviting Shampoo ta practice with us is paying off — Akane’s life’s been too easy lately ta really test her control, an old ‘rival’ is just what she needed._ But however gratifying the success of her little stratagem was, the redhead knew it wasn’t going to last. She’d only been getting to know the real Xian Pu for a few hours, but the cheerful nature she’d already known combined with the now-revealed sharp mind of Ku Lon’s heir would have no problem winning over her former rival, especially since their “rivalry” was now known for the farce it had always been. And then, Ranma would have to find another way to shake her lover’s composure. Of course, she already had one lined up — unfortunately.

Ranma’s eye’s darkened at the thought, and Akane stiffened and glanced over at her as her own growing ability to sense and analyze emotion-laden ki registered the spike of worry from the smaller girl. “Ranma, what’s wrong?” she asked worriedly.

Ranma’s eyes widened slightly, and she quickly banished thoughts of future tests as she sought out her own clear center. “Nothin’,” she said offhandedly, “just thinkin’ that when we’re done here and Nabs gets home we need ta pay a visit ta the Cat Café.” _Damn, she’s gettin’ good at that fast, faster than anyone I’ve seen but me. Is this so easy ta pick up once ya get down the basics?_

Instantly, the eyes of the other two girls in the small training room were focused on Ranma. “You haven’t been by since your first visit, why now?” Xian Pu asked, and Ranma’s own control shivered, then shattered like dropped glass.

Akane gasped at the ki now radiating from Ranma, dark, bleak ... despair? No ... she wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew she didn’t like it.

Ranma’s eyes fell. “Ya know at least some a’ yer people aren’t gonna live through this, don’t ya?” she asked the Amazon. Xian Pu nodded soberly. “I know Puu said she’d set things up ta alert yer people when I wanted ya ta come, but ... well, if I’m gonna get people killed on my say-so, I should at least ask in person,” the redhead finished bitterly.

Akane stepped over and pulled Ranma into a hug. “Whatever happens, however many die, it’s not your fault,” she said softly. “If you have to blame someone, blame the bastards planning to conquer us.”

“Akane’s right,” Xian Pu said, stepping over to lay a hand on Ranma’s shoulder even as her former ‘rival’ looked over at her in surprise. “What was that line from that movie I saw once? You did not ‘purpose their deaths when you purposed their services’. As much as any martial artist, it is a warrior’s duty to protect the helpless, and if some die in the process, they do no more than what that duty calls for.

“Besides, these invaders threaten the whole world, not just Japan, it’s just our fate to be the ones who have to face it.”

She gave her princess’s shoulder a gentle squeeze as Akane tightened her hug. Ranma took a deep breath, and Akane relaxed as she felt the dark ki fade under Ranma’s renewed control. “Thanks, guys,” Ranma murmured. “Now, let’s get practice done. There’s some ice cream in the fridge, we can have some ‘fore Nabs gets here and we head out.”

“Is the food that bad that we want to fill up before we go?” Chibi-Usa asked from where she had watched and listened to everything.

Xian Pu bristled, and Akane laughed. “No, the food’s great,” the black-haired girl said as she returned to the middle of the room to resume her kata. “Whatever else you can say about the Amazons, they know how to cook. And remember, you’re talking about Ranma.”

“Oh, yeah, the bottomless pit,” Chibi-Usa replied as she resumed her own practice stance. “Well, I guess when the _rest_ of us have spoiled our appetites, she can just eat whatever we don’t.”

“Hey, just helpin’ the rest a’ ya keep yer girlish figures,” Ranma tossed off. Soft chuckles filled the room as the girls returned to their practice.

/oOo\

In the back room of the Cat Café, Ku Lon looked up from the telephone handset at the sound of her name to find Lan Ren, the current greeter, standing beside her. “Yes, child?” she asked.

The finely (if skimpily) dressed teenager bowed. “My pardon for interrupting, Honored Elder, but Princess Yasuko is here with her wife, sister-in-law, and one of the Senshi — Chibi-Moon. She wishes to speak with you.”

The ancient, shrunken elder’s eyes widened. _Ranma here, now?_ “Thank you, Lan Ren. You can return to your duties,” she said with a nod. Lan Ren bowed and turned to leave as Ku Lon turned back to the telephone. “Jen Pau, Princess Yasuko is here, now, requesting my presence. I’ll call you back as soon as she is finished with me.”

On receiving an affirmative from the other end of the line, she quickly hung up the phone and pogoed out of the back room for the dining area, pausing to check out the group dynamics of the five teenagers at a private table in the back — the one that was now always empty, so that whenever the Princess dropped in she would have a place to sit. An eyebrow rose at the sight of her great-granddaughter sitting at the table, across from the ruler she was supposed to be bodyguarding. The purple-haired girl was being abnormally decorous, and Ku Lon chuckled when she saw the probable cause. Akane was sitting next to Ranma, of course—but _very_ close, her body language shouting that the redhead beside her was _hers_.

The elder glanced around and nodded at the sight of Bai Ting, Xian Pu’s backup, sitting unobtrusively at another table close enough to keep an eye on things but far enough away to let the teenagers have their privacy. _At least_ she _is still on station,_ Ku Lon thought as she resumed her approach. _And the last time she was here, Akane was much more at ease with Xian Pu. I wonder what happened?_

/\

“— and so we are going to need all the help we can get,” Ranma finished. “Puu — Setsuna — said that she had made arrangements for your people to get over here, have you heard from her people? How quickly can you get moved over?”

Ku Lon glanced over at Xian Pu. _I suppose I’ll have to cut the girl some slack for getting pulled off her assigned station — the Princess’s orders do take precedence, after all._ Focusing back on Ranma, she softly asked, “Is this what Your Highness wishes?”

Ranma stiffened, face frozen. After a moment Akane reached up to lay a hand on her shoulder. Ranma reached up to cover her wife’s hand with her own, and relaxed. “Yeah,” she said in a low voice. “Yeah, it is.”

Ku Lon nodded soberly, careful to keep any sympathy out of her expression. “Then _your_ people can be here within a month.”

Nabiki perked up from where she was sitting beside Xian Pu, turning from where she’d been looking concernedly at the wincing redhead to stare at Ku Lon. “That quickly?!” she asked in disbelief. “Just how many Amazons are there?”

“Several thousand, and yes that quickly,” Ku Lon replied with a chuckle. “But we can’t take credit for it — Meioh-san set it up with your emperor.”

Now she had the undivided attention of all the others around the table. “The _Emperor_!” Ranma breathed.

Ku Lon nodded. “Yes, the Emperor. He actually bought out the inhabitants of a small town up in the highlands for us to move to. They’re moving out now, and several Amazons are already onsite to see to it that our move in goes smoothly.”

“But ... but Setsuna says we need to keep this quiet!” Ranma protested.

Ku Lon shrugged. “I’m sure the Emperor understands that, we will simply have to trust that he knows what he’s doing.

“So, Ranma, your plan isn’t bad at all, for an off-the-cuff piece of work. I assume Meioh-san can supply a map for more detailed work. Just who were you thinking of recruiting?”

Ranma shook off her shock and frowned. “Well, Akane should be ready to join us by then.” The girl beside her lit up with delight, and Ku Lon thought she noticed a slight wince on Ranma’s part, mostly suppressed. “I was thinking of talkin’ ta Ryoga, Uc-chan and Konatsu, maybe Hinako-san, and ...” Her voice trailed off, she took a deep breath, and finished with, “... and Pop and Tendo-san.”

Akane’s face froze, and Ku Lon’s eyebrows rose as this time there was nothing suppressed about Ranma’s wince. _Odd — Ranma didn’t see that, but she reacted, anyway...._ “An interesting group,” she said, “but not all of those you mentioned can jump well enough to join the Senshi in the inner ring. And hasn’t it been years since Tendo-san really practiced his Art?”

“Yeah, it has,” Ranma replied. “But it should be at least a couple a’ months before the final fight, and when I tell him Akane’ll be a part of it that should be enough to convince him ta really work at gettin’ back on top a’ things. And yeah, not all a’ them can roof-hop, but they can help the outer ring.”

Ku Lon considered this for a bit, then nodded with a shrug. “There’s no point in wasting time trying to plan in more detail until Meioh-san supplies a map and we know what those you wish to speak with say. However, there is a name you left off your list that should perhaps be added — Tatewaki Kuno.”

“What!” Akane shouted.

It was Ranma’s turn to place a hand on her shoulder. “Remember, calm, center,” she murmured.

Akane took a deep breath, than another. Slowly she relaxed. Much more quietly, she asked, “Why would we want to include that would-be molester?!”

“Perhaps because now he isn’t a would-be molester, if he was before,” Ku Lon replied, and quickly related the tale of his visit the evening of Ranma’s and Akane’s last day in Nerima.

When she was through, Ranma glanced at Akane. “This one’s yer call, I think — you were the first one he went after. He’d be a big help, but our history isn’t exactly good. Do ya think ya can put up with the flowery speeches?”

Akane grimaced, but finally reluctantly nodded. “Yeah, fine, add the delusional idiot. I suppose I can put up with him for a few hours.”

“Still, we should probably keep the contact to a minimum,” Nabiki said. “Perhaps I should be the one to speak to him.” She smiled at the grateful smiles and sighs of relief from Akane and Ranma.

“Thanks, Nabiki, that’ll be a big help,” Ranma said gratefully. “But hold off until after I talk ta everyone else, I don’t want any forewarning and he isn’t exactly the most close-mouthed of people.”

Nabiki chuckled. “True, though I suspect he’ll be able to keep his mouth shut if I stress that the Emperor wants things kept quiet — he’ll do it as flamboyantly as possible, of course, but he’ll do it. Still, I’ll wait for your word.”

Ranma nodded her thanks. She turned to Ku Lon and was just opening her mouth to speak when her stomach growled — loudly. She flushed as everyone else laughed.

As the laughter died to chuckles, Ku Lon jumped to the top of her staff on the chair she’d been standing on. “I don’t believe there’s anything else we need to discuss at the moment, so on that note I’ll leave you to your meal,” she said. Then, smiling at Ranma she added, “Oh, and don’t worry about how much you eat, there will be no charge — not from Princess Yasuko’s party.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for a visual, here's a partial view of where the Amazons are moving, on Katsura River: http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=Katsura+River#/d1pwpyv


	12. Sometimes the label defines reality ...

When the call came on the Senshi communicator she had been given, Ranma was _very_ pleased at the interruption. It had been a month — a _month_ — since she’d received Usagi’s blessing to join the Senshi in battle, and there’d still been no call from Akari that Ryoga had returned. There had been three battles with the strange battle animals, but Ranma’s services been required only once, so her given word had held her on the sidelines, a frustrated spectator.

Things hadn’t been going so well on the home front, either. Ranma’s sense of duty had pulled her to the Cat Café once a week for updates on how the Amazons’ move to Japan was going, and the fawning — well, not fawning but very, very respectful — attitudes she’d picked up from the Amazons that waited on her hadn’t made the visits any more comfortable. She didn’t expect the visit she was going to need to make to the Amazons’ new home for honor’s sake to be any better.

Then there was Akane. As Ranma had hoped, Xian Pu’s presence had been a true irritant to her lover, testing her ability to stay centered and let go of her emotions beautifully. But as Ranma had feared, Xian Pu’s true happy personality and sharp mind had quickly won her former ‘rival’ over, and then the two had joined forces to get Ranma out of her shell. It had been almost a relief when Ku Lon had quietly taken her aside on her next visit to the Cat Café and asked her to stop pulling Xian Pu off her assigned place as her guard, because of the strain it put on her partner — almost; Xian Pu’s open friendliness without the sexual come ons and bubbly bimbo act was immensely relaxing to someone that could now recognize the emotions saturating the ki everyone radiated as naturally as breathing. Still, as welcome as it was it hadn’t helped Akane’s training after the short-lived jealous reaction.

So now here she was, getting plenty of practice in maintaining her own emotional control as day followed day and she ran through kata after kata waiting for the call from Akari that never came and her own impatience and frustration ratcheted higher and higher. Well, maybe this time she’d actually get a chance to relieve some of that stress in battle.

Bouncing over to where the communicator sat beside a water bottle, she grabbed it up, hit the ‘accept’ key, and smiled as the face of Sailor Mercury appeared on the tiny screen. She’d gotten to know the studious young woman well over the past month, spending several evenings a week at her apartment near the university reading the Mercury Computer’s records of the Life Dancers. “Ami, what’s up?” she asked eagerly, then winced. “Mercury, I meant Mercury!” she hastily added.

The blue haired, blue eyed young woman tried to frown repressively, then shrugged. “And don’t forget it,” she said. “Anyway, there’s a new attack. Uranus and Neptune are on their way, but we may need some backup so if you could get here —”

“Yes!” Ranma shouted, pumping an arm in victory, then blushed. “Uh, that is, I’ll be right there,” she hastily added, ignoring Mercury’s little chuckle and hitting the button that activated the tracking function as Mercury’s image disappeared from the screen.

_Okay, let’s see which of my ‘keepers’ are on watch today,_ she thought. That wouldn’t be much of a problem, the neighborhood was heavily slanted toward university students and so mostly emptied out during mornings and early afternoons on weekdays. Dropping into a lotus position, she closed her eyes and extended her newfound ability to sense living beings out ... and out ... and there, on the roof of the building across the alley and several floors up was Mu Tse. But they usually came in pairs ... and there, another floor up on her own roof was another human life sign, young, female, someone she didn’t recognize. No, wait, she’d picked up on the girl following her, Xian Pu, Chibi-Moon and Saturn when she’d joined that first fight. Good enough.

Rising from the lotus position, she walked over to the mini-dojo window and opened it. “Hey, Mousse, get down here!” she yelled up toward the opposite building’s roof. For a long moment there was no response, then the long-familiar figure stepped up to the edge of the roof and at Ranma’s waved invitation bounced down between the alley’s walls and through the window. Ranma shook her head slightly, still finding Mu Tse’s appearance odd — the coke bottle glasses gone and the long, flowing hair trimmed to a little below his shoulders now that he was no longer putting on the act of the lovestruck fool (not that he didn’t still get slightly glassy-eyed around Xian Pu, his act hadn’t been all that far of a stretch).

Flipping through the open window, Mu Tse bowed. “Princess Yasuko calls me?” he asked.

Ranma stiffened, then relaxed as his gently mocking tone registered. “Don’t let the ol’ ghoul hear ya talking like that,” she said with a smile, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

The Chinese teenager shuddered theatrically. “Not a chance!” Then, sobering, he asked, “So, Ranma, what’s up?”

“I just got a call,” the redheaded girl replied, holding up the Senshi communicator. “There’s a new attack going on, and I’m gonna provide backup as usual. After the way you guys panicked the last few times I headed out usin’ the Umisenken, I thought this time I’d give ya a heads up first.” She blushed slightly as she remembered the oh so polite dressing down Ku Lon had given her after she got back from the last fight.

Mu Tse nodded. “Thanks, I appreciate it. Where’s the attack?”

“Dunno, this thing doesn’t give distances.” Glancing down at the communicator, Ranma turned slightly and pointed toward the wall to her left. “But it’s in that direction.”

“Good enough,” Mu Tse said with a shrug. “Go ahead, we’ll catch up. The fight shouldn’t be all that hard to find.”

Ranma nodded, and vanished into her personal little twisting, spinning top imitation to emerge dressed in the white leotard, blue skirt and sleeveless jacket, and red boots, gloves and headband that Chibi-Usa and Hotaru had come up with for her costume, her hair free of its usual pigtail. Vanguard glanced over at Mu Tse, daring him to say anything, but he just looked back calmly so she sighed and turned toward the window. Just as she was starting to pull the Umisenken around her, Mu Tse spoke up. “So, Ranma, how long till you lose that pretty red bow at the back?” His princess simply glared at him for a moment before fading out of sight to the sound of his light chuckle.

/oOo\

Stepping to the edge of the roof of a one story building, still wrapped in the cloak of the Umisenken, Vanguard looked down at the fight taking place below and a half-block over, Sailors Uranus and Neptune slightly apart and firing their attacks down the street toward what looked like man-sized, two-legged, armless walking piles of rock. As she watched, Uranus sent another World Shaking down range, and Vanguard winced as the street buckled and twisted before the attack rose to smash into one of their foes. From the looks of the street, it was far from the first World Shaking Uranus had used. The mobile rock pile was knocked backward by the attack, and then Vanguard blinked when it exploded, shattering the windows in the building to its side. _That’s new — self-destructing enemies,_ she thought.

Glancing around, the redhead sighed with relief when she located Mercury, crouched and slightly behind a car behind her fellow Senshi, energy eye screen in place and hunched over her Mercury Computer. _Okay, everyone’s good, so let’s find a better lookout point,_ Vanguard thought, glancing at the buildings around. Locating one across from the three Senshi and a story higher than the roof she was on, she leaped for the nearest telephone pole.

Flipping up onto the roof of her new watch point, Vanguard froze in place as soon as she landed, suddenly tight as a bow string. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who’d thought this made a good place to observe the fight, because there was already a film crew on the roof, the large, ungainly camera on a tripod focused down on the three Senshi in the street below.

Vanguard watched the three-man crew at work for a few moments. She could just slip away, it was what her hind-brain was shouting for — but suddenly, she was tired. Tired of hiding in the apartment when Akane and Nabiki were at school, tired of never going anywhere alone, tired of watching every man around her like a hawk, fighting against the urge to flinch whenever one brushed against her on the street, tired of the well hidden worry from Akane (her lover _was_ doing very well at purging her ki of all emotion) and less well hidden worry from Nabiki. Just — tired.

_Right._ An unseen impish grin spreading on her face, Vanguard made sure that the Umisenken was firmly in place, then just as firmly ignored the butterflies in her stomach and quietly slipped behind the man that was apparently in charge — at least, he was the one that was directing where to focus the camera. “Hi,” she said, dropping her invisibility shield. “Good, aren’t they?”

The man seemed to levitate and whip around at the same time, and Vanguard’s hasty grab was the only thing that kept him from stepping over the edge and plummeting to the sidewalk two stories below. She yanked him back, and found herself flat on her back feeling slightly smished from having him land on top of her. Every muscle tensed as she forced herself not to throw him off, hurt him, kill him ... she settled for whispering, “Owie!” Then, as he simply lay there staring into her eyes, she asked, “Uh, could ya get off a’ me?”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” he exclaimed, rolling off of her. The eyes of his two companions widened as they took in her costume and their right hands, tucked up underneath their coats by their armpits, drifted down to their sides, empty.

Vanguard sat up, blushing as she pulled her skirt down over her red bicycle shorts even as she felt herself relaxing, then flipped to her feet. Looking at the roof top and reaching up for the currently nonexistent pigtail, she rubbed the back of her neck. “That wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be,” she muttered. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

One of the other two started to chuckle. “Oh, I don’t know—I suspect Inouoe-san will be telling this story for the rest of his life,” the other one said, grinning. “Believe me, he’s going to get plenty of laughs!”

Inouoe glared at his two subordinates. “Maruyama-san, Sano-san, get back to work — Sano-san, take over the directing.” The two men nodded and hurriedly turned back to the camera on its tripod. Inouoe turned back to the redheaded girl, now blushing even harder. “Don’t worry about it, Vanguard, it should be as good a story for you in years ahead. But what are you doing up here? I would think you’d be down in the street with the Senshi.”

“Nah, I’m the backup,” Vanguard replied, grateful for the change of subject. “Speaking a’ which ...” She quickly hurried over to the edge of the roof and looked down at the three Senshi, just in time to see another of the rock-things self-immolate. _Whew, still good. Ya got careless there, Ranma, keep yer mind on the fight!_ Dropping onto her hands and swinging around to sit on the edge of the roof, she watched as a Deep Submerge flew down range to knock several rock piles around like ten pins, though this time none of them blew up.

Much less gracefully, Inouoe sat down next to her. After a moment, he said, “Vanguard, something that’s been on my mind since your first appearance —”

“As opposed ta my second appearance?” Vanguard broke in to say, and Inouoe chuckled.

“Yes, since the beginning. Why don’t you have a battle cry of some sort, or shout out your attacks?”

“Why? The Senshi don’t.”

“Not now, but they did when they were younger. What’s cute and endearing in a young girl seems rather stupid in a young woman,” Inouoe responded with a shrug.

“Like I want ta be ‘cute and endearing’. Besides, it was pretty stupid when they first started, too,” Vanguard instantly disagreed. “But when ya hand enough power ta take on a small army ta school girls and tell ‘em it’s up ta them ta save the world, yer gonna get some stupid stuff just like they read about in the comics — just ta make all the pain and fear bearable. Thanks ta my life I don’t need it, already got all the practice I need.” Glancing at the man sitting beside her and catching the expression of surprised respect, she carefully hid a smirk. _No need ta mention that came from Ami — Mercury, dammit, she’s in action._ A quick check — yup, the blue-haired Senshi of Ice was still behind the car, energy shades in place and working on her computer.

Inouoe was silent, thinking over what she’d said. After a few moments, he nodded. “Makes sense. Still, I wish you had followed the tradition of the younger Senshi.”

“Really? Why?” Vanguard glanced at him in surprise, then refocused on the battle zone below. One of the things had managed to get close enough to Uranus that she actually had to use the Space Sword like a sword — how had it managed to do that? Not that it mattered, and at least Uranus was smart enough to jump away just as it exploded, rode out most of the shockwave, Senshi healing factor should take care of the shrapnel wounds....

Inouoe watched the Senshi with the short blond hair lever herself back to her feet. “Have you been to a movie since you started joining the fights?” he asked.

Vanguard shrugged. “Nah, got more important things ta do. Why?”

“Because if you did, you might find the audience reaction to your fights interesting.” He fell silent for a few moments, then sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, they’re happy you win, but ... you scare people, Vanguard.” When she turned her head to stare at him, he shrugged. “It’s true. You’re ... intense, totally focused, absolutely ruthless. Combine that with the way you can’t be seen unless you wish and your claws ... even the way you use your claws seems almost like an animal.”

Vanguard forced her gaze back on the fight below ... there was something about it that was nagging at her, something she ought to be seeing....

“Ya could be right — if ya got claws, the fact they _are_ claws means yer gonna seem kinda like an animal. Not sure what I can do about it.”

“So don’t have claws,” Inouoe said simply.

“And what do I fight with if I don’t use ‘em?” Vanguard asked shortly. “I’m good with my fists, but not _that_ good — not against things like this. My hand’d break before they did.” _Too bad Ryoga isn’t here, he’d turned these walking rockpiles into so many sandboxes._

“Oh, use them, but do they have to be claws?” Inouoe asked. “Why not knives, or short staves, or nunchaku — even swords?”

Vanguard twisted to stare in shock at the older man. “Why the hells didn’t I think a’ that?” she asked when she finally got her voice back, smacking her forehead with her palm. “Of all the stupid, blind ...”

Suddenly, she caught something out of the corner of her eye, something weird about the side of the building across the street. It was as if she was seeing a patch of heat distortion slowly slip down the wall toward the sidewalk behind Mercury.

Closing her eyes, Vanguard quickly extended her life sense out, farther ... there was Mu Tse and his fellow Amazon warrior, hiding on the fire escape for this building on the wall facing the alley. Further ... and her eyes flew open. “Oh crap, these things have camouflage! Gotta go!” And as Inouoe stared in shock, the redheaded teenager pushed herself off the edge of the roof, vanishing from sight as she fell.


	13. The race is not to the swift

Mercury glanced again around the car she was hiding behind, wincing as another World Shaking tinged blue by her visor tore up yet more of the street as it roared toward another of strange rock-like things they were fighting, then pulled back to look down at the Mercury Computer. The readings were ... odd. These things did have some magic, but not anywhere as much as she had expected, certainly not enough to sustain a lifeform — surely these walking rock piles weren’t natural! And the life signs were hard to pin down, flickered, vanished and reappeared —

Then something crunched behind her, a sound like crushed rock. The Senshi of Ice whirled in place, and her eyes widened as several yard away the air seemed to waver, and suddenly one of the rock monsters was there, leaning toward her as its thick tail extended behind it for balance. Even as she rose to her feet, Mercury Computer vanishing to safety, its maw gaped open to reveal jagged teeth like spikes of crystal and it _hissed_ — and Mercury froze in place as a massive wave of fear smashed into her.

At twenty years of age, Mercury had seen more action than many career soldiers, and of a greater variety than any, and she had no trouble recognizing her panic for what it was — a magically induced attack, designed to do just what it was doing, freeze her in place. Even as the monstrosity stepped toward her with a sound like grinding stones, she closed her eyes. _Come on, Mercury, this isn’t the first time fear’s been used on you, fight through it!_ She strained against the paralysis, then without opening her eyes simply threw herself to the side with a gasp of effort, away from the car she’d been hiding behind and out into the street as something huge smashed into the space she’d just been occupying. Opening her eyes as she rolled into a crouch, she found the rock-thing lifting its head from the street where she’d been a moment before.

Again, it _hissed_ as it started to stride toward her, but this time Mercury was ready for the emotional assault, letting it wash through her even as she rose to her feet, ready to dodge — and Vanguard was there, suddenly appearing out of thin air as the redhead dropped toward the rock-thing, glowing claws flashing as they carved into where the thing’s neck would be if it had one.

The hiss turned into a roar as the creature reared and whirled, and Vanguard spun through the air to land gracefully where the toss had flung her, grinning. The rock-pile turned to face her, leveling its head and _hiss_ ing again.

“Sorry, already got a tea kettle at home,” Vanguard tossed off with a smirk, then blurred into motion as she charged straight at the thing even as shouts from up the street showed Neptune and Uranus had belatedly noticed the fighting behind them.

The creature turned slightly to the side, and Mercury shouted a warning as its thick tail whipped around toward the charging girl. But Vanguard must have been watching for it, because she was already sliding under the flailing attack. Her claws flashed across the appendage, and a black liquid that must serve the creature for blood spurted out as a foot-long section flipped down the street.

Mercury finally shook herself out of her stunned awe and an ice lance shimmered into existence in her hands as she started circling, looking for an opportunity to strike, and a target that her lance would actually penetrate — she had serious doubts about its effectiveness against the creature’s rocky skin, especially since the Mercury Computer had indicated that it really _was_ rock. _Why is Ran — Vanguard playing with it?_ she wondered. Then a vision rose in her mind of Vanguard tearing into the thing like a buzzsaw, pieces flying everywhere — getting blown down the street when the dying monster exploded ... _Right, weaken it first, then finish it off from a distance with a ranged attack, smart kid._

Within moments the Senshi of Ice was joined by Neptune and Uranus. Without taking her eyes off the sight of Vanguard seeming to almost dance around and over the monster, carving pieces off with each pass, she said, “Neptune, these things have some sort of camouflage field. Keep watch behind us, and if you see anything that looks like a heat shimmer, blast it. Uranus, get a World Shaking ready.” Neptune nodded and turned her back on the fight, as a glowing ball of energy sprang into existence between her lover’s hands.

“Vanguard, get clear!” Mercury shouted.

“Right!” the redhead called back, glancing toward the Senshi, then, “Yikes!” as the creature took advantage of her momentary distraction to whip around in another tail strike. Vanguard easily avoided the sweep with a quick leap back, but a splash of “blood” from the still-spurting tail caught her across the face and she screamed, pawing at her eyes. Instantly, the rock-pile rush forward and whipped around again, the tail smashing into Vanguard’s side and sending her hurtling across the street to crash into the side of a local café.

The rock-pile started to follow, only to be smashed away as Uranus’ World Shaking crashed into it. The street shook as it smashed down, then again as it exploded, blasting the Senshi off their feet. Mercury rolled to her feet again, ignoring her shrapnel wounds as she ran toward the unconscious Vanguard slumped below the impact crater in the café wall her collision had created. A globe of water formed in the blue-haired woman’s hands, then slowly collapsed, pouring down over the face of the redhead and washing away the black liquid coating her face. Mercury winced at the blisters that revealed. _Oh, shit — I just hope she’s learned something from all the reading she’s been doing about the Life Dancers, or this could be bad,_ she thought grimly.

The other two Senshi arrived within seconds, ignoring their own bleeding wounds, already closing slowly, to take up guard positions as Mercury summoned the Mercury Computer and quickly scanned the redhead, then slumped in relief. “How is she?” the Senshi of the Deeps asked anxiously, envisioning what their Princess would have to say to them if her little sister had been seriously injured.

Mercury looked up, mouth opening to respond, then froze, mouth still hanging open, when suddenly the street around them seemed to be struck by a sudden heat wave, then monster after monster shimmered into existence until the three young women and younger teenager were surrounded by over half a dozen of the walking rock-piles in a half-circle pinning the three against the building, with the occasional odd shimmer in the air hinting at more still in hiding.

Quickly, the blue-haired young woman rose from her crouch, another globe of water forming in her hands. “Their hiss is some form of fear attack, so be prepared,” she warned hastily, scanning around her with her visor and not liking the readings she was getting. _Damn it — we may have to go with an Aqua Mist, make a run for it this time, shadow these things till reinforcements can get here,_ she thought despairingly. _I hate to abandon whatever civilians are still in the area to these things, but we can’t help them if we’re dead._ Steeling herself, she whispered, “Neptune, Uranus, I’m going to fire off an Aqua Mirage. When I do, fire off your attacks as well while I grab Vanguard. Then I’ll call up an Aqua Mist and we —”

The rock-pile on the far left of the half-circle around the girls was suddenly smashed to the side, colliding with its pack-mate. A large, fanged boy wearing dusty, ragged clothes and a yellow- and black-striped bandana stepped into the space he’d made, taking one hand off the handle of the huge, and now badly bent, umbrella he’d use to knock the thing away. Turning to face the creatures, he reached out to poke the nearest one where its head rose from its shoulders. The thing shivered, and suddenly exploded backwards, showering its nearest pack-mates with a massive spray of steaming black “blood” and gravel. The boy was already stepping forward to repeat the performance on the next creature in line.

“Yes!” Uranus exulted, instantly whirling to fire her World Shaking down-range at the monsters on their far right, stepping forward to clear a line of fire for Mercury even as she and Neptune fired their own attacks into the massed creatures in front of them and the large boy turned several more monstrosities into scattered pieces of “blood”-soaked gravel. Without discussion, the three worked to keep most of the creatures away from the boy, so that only a few of them could come at him at a time. Within minutes, the street was clear of both the walking rock-piles and the pockets of heat shimmers indicating more hiding monstrosities.

As the last rock-pile sprayed more gravel and “blood” across a parked car, Mercury knelt down to carefully lift the still unconscious Vanguard in her arms, wincing at the thought of what was to come. “You’re P-chan, aren’t you?” she asked, turning to the boy that had come to their aid.

“Well ... yeah,” Ryoga admitted wincing. “Is that — ?”

“Vanguard,” Mercury cut him off, mindful of the cameras surely around them recording every word. “It’s Vanguard. Can you roof-hop?”

“Uh ... yeah ...” Ryoga managed to get out, before Mercury turned away.

“Follow me, we need to talk,” she ordered, racing for the alley as gently as she could. Uranus and Neptune exchanged glances then quickly followed. Ryoga watched them for a few seconds, shrugged, shifted his backpack to a more comfortable position, and raced after them.

Unnoticed by everyone else, a couple of Amazons quietly followed their Princess, the Senshi, and their surprise ally.


	14. Not exactly rivals, now ...

Ranma awoke to a world of pain. This wasn’t exactly a new experience, of course. The ache of muscles pushed past their normal limits was long familiar. The sharp ache of cracked ribs were something she’d felt more than once (though at least the stabbing sensation of _broken_ ribs was absent), as was the pounding headache that probably indicated a concussion. But the pain across her upper face, like molten metal spread across her eyes — _that_ was new, and yanked a breathy shriek from her throat as she squirmed, trying to raise her hands to her face only to find them pinned to her sides by someone’s arms.

“Easy, Ranma, easy,” the redhead heard Mercury say from off to the side. “Ryoga, keep her from touching her face!”

“I’m on it, just as you already told me,” came the Lost Boy’s voice, as the arms holding her tightened, shifting to block Ranma’s reflexive, if awkward, strike.

“Sorry, I’m just ... Ranma, listen, you can’t touch your face,” Mercury said. “You were splashed by those things’ blood, and it’s caustic, you’re hurt bad and touching it will make it worse.”

Ranma nodded, gasping at what that did to the pain bouncing around inside her head. Opening her eyes, she found herself looking out at a world of blurry shapes, one holding her, three gathered around. “That why I can’t really see anything?” she asked.

The Senshi of Ice looked up from the Mercury Computer at Ryoga and his armful on the flat rooftop, wincing again at the sight of the blistered, reddened skin across her friend’s face, the redhead’s eyes shifting about sightlessly, then up at the poorly-concealed look of concern on the face of the large, grubby boy holding the redhead. “I was afraid of that ... yes, your eyes have been damaged.”

Ranma chuckled, wincing. “Looks like I get ta try out the healing trance I think I figured out, from that stuff on the Life Dancers ya let me read,” she said, her voice tight with pain. “I sure hope it works.”

Mercury froze. “You mean you don’t _know_?” she asked incredulously.

“Of course not, how can I? I’ve never tried it,” Ranma replied. “I think I know how it worked, I’ve put myself in it a few times, but I’ve never had any actual injuries ta deal with.”

Mercury just stared at the younger girl for a long moment. _Usagi is going to_ kill _me! Yasuko, little one,_ please _be okay._ Finally, she shook herself free of her shock. “Okay, but not here. We need to get you to ... to where you can rest for a few hours — it _will_ take a few hours, right?”

“Yeah, at least,” Ranma agreed.

“And Ryoga won’t be able to come with us,” Mercury continued, smiling apologetically at the fanged boy. “You were a big help dealing with those things, but we Senshi have secrets.” Ryoga shrugged. “Anyway, Ranma, I know you wanted to talk to Ryoga, have been waiting for him to get back before visiting Nerima.”

“Yeah, I did,” Ranma agreed again. “But first, is everyone else all right? None of the blurs are the right colors ta be Uranus or Neptune.”

“Oh, yes, they’re fine,” Mercury hastily assured her. “They’d be here, but they had things to get back to. You’re lucky you don’t have much of a secret identity to get in the way of protecting the world.”

“Yeah, just Akane fussin’ over me,” Ranma said with a grimace.

“Don’t pretend you won’t enjoy it,” Mu Tse said wryly from where he stood to the side, keeping his worry out of his voice.

Mercury glanced up at the young man. She noted the way his eyes continually scanned their surroundings rather than looking at his — friend? perhaps — then gazed worriedly at the way her friend’s face seemed to be tightening from pain. _That must be sheer agony._ “Well, why don’t you have your talk with Ryoga, then after that — can your trance hold while I carry you?”

Ranma nodded. “I think so — we’ll find out.”

“Then you can get in your trance, and I can take you somewhere to recover and let Akane know so she can come fuss over you some more.”

“Right.”

For a long moment Ranma simply lay there in Ryoga’s arms, stiffened from pain, eyes fixed on the blur that was all she could see of her long-time rival. _Come on, Ranma, be a — suck it up, it isn’t gonna be easier if ya wait._ Finally, she said, “Ryoga, I need yer permission ta tell Akane about yer curse.”

Ryoga stiffened, and Ranma gasped as the arms holding her tightened. “Easy, big guy, easy, cracked ribs here!” she got out in a strangled voice.

Ryoga immediately loosened his grip. “Sorry, sorry! I’m just ... why do you want to tell her? I hardly ever see her anymore, now that I seem to end up at Akari’s farm instead of wherever you two are, we’re still friends, can’t we just leave things the way they are?”

Ranma chuckled mirthlessly. “I said I _need_ ta tell her, not that I _want_ to. She isn’t gonna be very happy with me, either, and I’m the one that’s gonna hafta break the bad news,” she said in a thin voice. “She ... there’s a big fight, comin’ Ryoga, a Senshi-type, dead bodies everywhere, save-the-world fight, an’ me an’ her are gonna be in the middle of it. You too, if ya happen ta be here at the right time, some others from the old Crew, but especially her.”

She paused for a long moment, gritting her teeth, hands curling into fists. “Akari said ya got my letter, do ya believe me ... about emotion-powered ki?” she asked.

“I ... yes, I think I do,” Ryoga said after a moment. “I ran into Kasumi a few days ago, and she told me about your last day in Nerima, how Akane lost control — how lucky she was that Happosai was already dead before she hammered him. That’s not like the sweet, loving girl I know.” He paused for a moment as Ranma repressed a derisive snort. “Is ... Kasumi said Akane’s ... with you, now. Is she all right?”

“Yeah, she’s doing fine,” Ranma said, smiling slightly in spite of the way it pulled at her burned skin and unaware of the way her pained expression softened.

“Good. I’m ... with Akari, now, but ... good. We’re getting married soon. Anyway,” Ryoga hastily continued, “even without your letter, I wouldn’t have used the Shishi Hokodan even if we’d had one of our ... spars. I’m just not depressed enough, anymore.”

“Hey great! Congratulations!” Ranma enthused, wincing even as her smile briefly grew into a grin. Sobering, she continued, “I’ve been working on a new way ta use ki, ta replace the ki-blasts, based on the claws I have when I go inta the neko-ken.” Holding up a hand, she tried to bring her claws to life, but failed miserably. “Damn, pain’s gettin’ in the way. Well, take my word for it, I did it, and I’ve been trainin’ Akane. She’s really been comin’ along, too, workin’ hard at it. Problem is, ta make it work ya have ta stay calm, not let yer emotions touch ya — if ya do, the claws go away. And if that happens in the middle of a fight —”

“You could get hurt, or worse,” Ryoga finished, the blob Ranma could see nodding. “So you need something to make her angry?”

“Yeah, she’s been too happy lately,” Ranma agreed. “I haven’t really had anything ta test her on it. Insults aren’t working anymore, she just doesn’t think I mean ‘em, even a little bit.”

“Right.” Ryoga was silent for a time, then the blob shrugged. “Sure, go ahead and tell her. I’ll just have to hope she doesn’t kill me the next time we meet.”

“Nah, that won’t be a problem,” Ranma tried to toss off lightly, even as she felt tears of pain running from the corners of her eyes down the sides of her head. “By then, she’ll know yer gettin’ married, and she’ll want ta know all the details. Ya know how girls get all gushy over that sorta thing.”

The redhead felt Ryoga’s chuckle rumble through his chest. “Yeah, Akari goes all starry-eyed whenever she thinks of it,” he said. “But from the glare your friend, here, is giving me, I think she wants to get you out of here.”

Ranma glanced toward the blur that Mercury’s voice had come from earlier. “Right!” Mercury said firmly. “I think it’s time you try out that healing trance and we get you to a bed. I can call Akane and let her know what happened as soon as she gets out of school.”

“Sounds good, thanks,” Ranma said, “Hey, Ryoga, I doubt I can train ya, not the way ya wander, but next time we talk I’ll give ya some pointers on the claws, maybe you can make it work from that.”

“I’d like that, now get in that trance,” Ryoga said.

Ranma nodded, then gasped as more pain shot through her head, seeming to ricochet around inside her skull. Drawing a deep shuddering breath and closing her eyes, she slowly forced her muscles to relax, her fists to uncurl, as she let it out. _Come on, genius, the Life Dancers learned this before they learned how ta heal people, it’s the easy part. Block out the world, ignore it, not important, remember what it feels like ta be whole...._ Her awareness of the world faded as she concentrated, sounds becoming meaningless, the feel of Ryoga’s arms holding her becoming unreal, the pain she’d been fighting a losing battle to control slowly fading. She pulled up the memory of the time at the ice cream parlor, sitting in the booth, grimacing at the impish smile on Akane’s face as Hotaru and Chibi-Usa enthused about designing a costume. _Yes, like that, I want to be like that,_ she thought as she wrapped the memory about her like a warm blanket, and the pain vanished along with all awareness of the world around her.


	15. The Return of The Hammer

Akane almost gasped in sheer relief when the bell rang for the end of school, even as she shot out of her chair, hurriedly packed up her last class’s books, and rushed for the door. The feeling that Ranma was in serious trouble had started without warning hours ago, and while it had leveled off, even diminished somewhat over time, Ranma hadn’t picked up the phone at the apartment when she’d called from a payphone between classes. The remainder of the school day had been sheerest torture, but now she could _finally_ get to Hotaru and have the other Musketeer use her Senshi communicator to check in. _Usa_ would _decide to get sick for real today,_ she grumbled as she raced through the halls toward Hotaru’s classroom.

Then there was Hotaru coming her way, eyes widening at Akane’s haste. “Akane, what’s —” the fragile-seeming girl got out, before Akane grabbed her arm and turned to hustle her friend toward the school’s exit.

“Something’s wrong with Ranma,” Akane whispered. “We’re getting somewhere private, and then you’re calling in to find out what’s going on.”

Hotaru glanced at Akane, a worried expression now on her face, then jerked suddenly, the reaction Akane had come to recognize as the “my communicator’s vibrating” signal. “Someone’s calling in right now,” Hotaru said softly, “but it’s the non-emergency pattern. If it’s about Ranma, there’s no immediate danger.”

Akane relaxed slightly, even slowed down a little as they came to the stairwell (to Hotaru’s carefully hidden relief).

A few minutes later, the pair managed to find an empty classroom, and Akane braced a chair under the doorknob as Hotaru pulled out the still-vibrating communicator, flipped it open and hit the “accept” button. “Hi, Mercury, what’s going on?” she asked, and Akane was instantly by her side as the blue-haired Senshi replied.

“Is Akane with you? It’s Ranma, she’s been hurt.”

/oOo\

Akane stared down at the apparently sleeping redhead lying on the futon in the guest bedroom at the Hikawa Shrine, ignoring her friend by her side and Usagi kneeling on the other side clutching one of Ranma’s hands. Her eyes were fixed on the blisters coating the reddened strip of skin across her lover’s upper face. “All right?!” she whispered hoarsely, almost trembling with the effort to keep her voice down. “You call this all right?!”

Beside her, Mercury sighed. “I said Ranma _is going to be_ all right, not that she is all right now,” the studious Senshi replied. “If you think this looks bad, you should have seen her a few hours ago. It seems Ranma figured out how to make the Life Dancer healing trance work, after all.” Glancing down at the Mercury Computer in her hands, she added, “It even looks like her eyes will heal completely, Ranma’s eyesight should be completely unimpaired.”

Akane froze as fresh horror at what might have been flashed through her, then closed her eyes and forced herself to relax muscle by muscle. _She’s going to be all right, Ami said so, and she’s the one with the portable infomat that can actually scan people. She knows what she’s talking about. Ranma’s going to be all right._ She knelt down beside her lover and took the hand Usagi wasn’t holding, even as she forced herself to ignore the quiet voice in the back of her mind, whispering, _And what about next time?_

For a time, she simply gazed at her life’s face, her mind replaying the happy times together in the past and future joy to come, Ranma teaching her what she’d learned of the Life Dancers, opening a dojo and teaching the next generation, having some children of their own (Akane bearing the children, of course, the thought of _Ranma_ having them made her just a bit queasy — maybe Ryoga would be willing to make the needed donation if Akari let him, for artificial insemination of course?).

Akane started when a weak voice broke into her rumination. “Hey, Tomboy, good ta see ya.” Her latest dream of a little dark-haired girl with slight fangs beating off a little boy that looked remarkably like Kuno vanished, and she found herself looking at her lover’s smiling face — a face without a single blister and its skin a healthy pink.

“Yasuko, you’re all right!” Usagi squealed as she swooped down to pull her younger sister into a hug. Akane laughed as Ranma’s arms flailed about in panic for a moment, the hand Akane was holding yanking out of her grasp, before circling her lover’s older sister to return the hug.

She smiled as her eyes met Ranma’s over Usagi’s shoulder, ignoring the tears running down her cheeks. “Welcome back, Idiot. Remember to duck next time!” she said softly, managing to limit the quaver in her voice to a hint. Beside her, Mercury and Hotaru laughed as Ranma blushed.

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” the redhead promised, then broke off with a huge yawn even as her stomach growled — loudly. Usagi instantly let her go.

“Oh, you must be starving! Let me get Rei, get some dinner ...” the single-braided blonde gasped, jumping to her feet.

“Yeah, thanks, big sis. I could use some —” Ranma got out before breaking off with another giant yawn, eyes trying to droop closed.

Hotaru, Usagi and Akane glanced over at Mercury, worry on their faces, but the Senshi of Ice shook her head. “Nothing to worry about,” she assured them, then glanced down at her computer’s screen. “Ranma’s fine, she’s just used up a lot of energy during the healing trance. A few big meals and a long night’s sleep, and she should be fine.”

“Right!” Usagi said, and started for the door only to be intercepted by Hotaru.

“I’ll take care of it, you stay with Ranma,” the normally passive girl ordered, and dashed out the door calling for Rei.

Mercury looked back over at Ranma. “I’d say you’re going to be staying here tonight. We’ll have to get some bedding from Rei while you eat and wash up — Akane ought to be happy to help you with that,” she gently teased, glancing over at the suddenly blushing brunette, than back at the redhead whose face now matched her hair.

“Uh ... yeah, sure ...” Ranma managed to get out before Hotaru bustled back into the room, followed by Rei, still in her miko robes and carrying a large bowl of soup.

/oOo\

“We’re home!” Ranma called out as she and Akane stepped through their apartment door and slipped off their shoes. Nabiki looked up from the papers covering the table, an open book in front of her and a welcoming smile on her face that Akane was still getting used to even after the past few months away from Nerima. Still, the smile didn’t hide the searching look the middle Tendo gave the redhead, gazing intently at her face then nodding.

“Welcome back,” Nabiki responded. “It looks like the healing trance worked as advertised?”

“Of course it did, it’s me!” Ranma boasted in her old cocky manner. Nabiki chuckled, shaking her head and shooting Akane a sharp look.

“Even so, be a little more careful next time — spending hours worrying before _Setsuna-san_ thinks to give me a late night call isn’t exactly conducive to study.”

“Uh, right ... sorry,” an abashed Akane said, then looked over the papers scattered over the table and frowned at the column of figures covering the pages. “Nabiki, what are you studying? That doesn’t look like any of the classes I know of.”

Nabiki quirked an eyebrow at her younger sister, but accepted the change of subject. “It isn’t — I’m changing my career path from investigative reporting to finance.”

“You are? But I thought you said that would bore you to tears — that you wanted to be a hunting dog, not a sheep dog, or something,” Ranma remarked as she opened the refrigerator and pulled out the makings of a quick lunch. “Do ya want a light lunch along with me an’ Akane?”

“Sure, and yes, I did,” Nabiki mused, a thoughtful expression on her face. “But Setsuna-san suggested that I might— ‘be of more use to my loved ones’ is how she put it — if I went into finance, instead. And anything that woman suggests has to be taken seriously.”

Ranma glanced up sharply from the lunch preparations at that, then nodded slowly. “Ya got that right,” she agreed. “Puu has changed from what I remember. She was always too serious before, but now ...”

“Hey, she’s spent four thousand years cleaning up after the biggest intelligence failure in the history of the world, of course she’s more driven,” Akane said from the seat she’d taken across the table from her sister. “I’m just amazed she’s still sane.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Ranma agreed. “Hey, Nabs, when Puu called, did she mention that Ryoga showed up at yesterday’s fight?”

“No, she didn’t.” Nabiki straightened in her seat. “Is it time for me to make that visit to Kuno?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Ranma agreed. “I’ll be makin’ my own trip back ta the madhouse pretty soon, now. Lunch’ll be ready in a few minutes. If you’ll get yer homework off the table, and Akane can get some plates out, we can eat.”

/oOo\

Smoothly finishing the most complicated kata she knew that the constrained space of the apartment’s mini-dojo allowed, Akane came to a stop in the middle of the room, careful to keep an odd mix of eagerness, fear, happiness and frustration from disturbing her quiet calm, her ki-claws still firmly in place.

From against the wall, as out of the way of the practicing girl as the room allowed, Ranma, in full-fledged sensei-mode, nodded approvingly. “Very good, not even a bobble,” the redhead said, and Akane beamed at the praise even as she let her joy wash through her without touching her core.

“So, does that mean I’m ready?” she asked eagerly.

“Maybe ... yer certainly keeping the claws in place just fine. But that’s here, not in a real fight,” Ranma cautioned.

“Well, there’s only one way to test that!” Akane asserted, trying to keep her tone calm even as she pushed through a wave of frustration — a task made easier by the fear she felt leaking into the ki radiating from her lover.

“Yeah, I guess,” Ranma agreed, and Akane’s calm shivered as exultation exploded through her. Ranma shivered slightly and Akane winced when she realized at least some of her pleasure must have leaked into her ki. She twitched in place, wanting to step over to comfort the smaller girl, but firmly suppressed the urge — she’d once made the mistake of stepping out of the Saotome style’s relaxed ready-for-anything stance before Ranma announced that her personal training was over, and that once was more than enough.

“By the way, Tomboy, when I talked with Ryoga yesterday I got permission ta tell ya about something — a secret Ryoga’s kept from ya for the past couple’a years,” Ranma added.

Akane’s eyes narrowed as Ranma’s trickle of fear strengthened. “Secret? What secret?” she asked cautiously.

“Oh, not much — just that Ryoga has a Jusenkyo curse of his own. He’s P-chan,” Ranma tossed out lightly.

For just a moment the words were meaningless, and then Akane’s emotional control shattered as her mind flashed back over the past several years — Ranma sneaking into her room at night with a tea kettle; the insults he had thrown at his rival, “bacon-breath” and “P-chan,” that had seemed so odd at the time but made perfect sense now; the way P-chan and Ryoga had never been around at the same time; the interesting presents the piglet had brought every so often.... _I ... I took him to bed with me...._

“Ranma, how long have you known?” she asked in a strangled voice as anger, disgust, shame, and pain at their betrayal clashed and mixed in her heart.

Ranma tensed even as she sighed. “Since before ya first found P-chan,” she admitted reluctantly, and Akane’s vision flashed red.

_Oh, shit!_ Ranma thought despairingly, her ears ringing with the brunette’s throat-ripping shriek. Akane’s ki flushed pure red with anger, and her hands were already curling into a _very_ familiar and unwelcome shape as red light flickered between her fingers and thumbs and the sudden berserker charged forward. The redhead had been afraid that Akane’s reaction was going to be bad, but this ... !

Ranma’s own control shivered under the onslaught of her shock and fear, but she held onto her own calm center with metaphorical bleeding fingers as her mind desperately flashed through response after response. She _couldn’t_ let Akane hit her, the girl would never forgive herself, but the wall was at her back and with Akane’s rage-fueled speed —

Then a memory of a Hollywood movie snapped into focus, the one about Camelot, and Ranma grinned even as she whipped around to put her back to the window and an arm flashed up across her chest, the energy of her claws springing into existence in the shape of the shields the knights of the Round Table has used. Ranma desperately poured all the strength she had into the shimmering triangular shape braced in front of her even as she fought to hold the calm that made it possible, and then The Hammer smashed into the shield and she was riding the impact, twisting in mid-air to hit the window shield first, carrying through in an explosion of shattered glass, twisting again to hit the wall of the building across from their apartment building feet first, knees flexing to absorb the impact without cratering the wall, dropping toward the alley floor beneath her....

/\

Akane panted as she glared at the few shards of glass left in the window, shivering as aftershocks of her emotional storm echoed through her. _What ... what did I ... just do?_ The thought whispered in the back of her mind, and panic rolled over her. “Ranma!” she screamed as she rushed to the window, heedless of the broken glass still clinging to the window frame as she desperately looked around. There wasn’t a hole in the wall across the alley, so where was — her eyes dropped down to find Ranma on the alley floor rising from a crouch, apparently unharmed.

Relief flooded through her, and she stepped back then threw herself through the window even as the room’s door slammed open. “What the hell was that?!” she heard Nabiki shout even as she dropped to the alley’s concrete floor and threw herself at the redhead, knocking them both to the ground in a mutual embrace.

“Ranma I’m sorry I didn’t mean to are you all right I’m sorry I was so angry don’t leave me I couldn’t ...” she babbled desperately, tears streaming from her eyes.

Then one of the hands embracing her rose from her back to gently stroke her hair. “Shhhhh, easy, I’m not goin’ anywhere, how could I leave my Tomboy?” Ranma murmured in her ear as her shivering eased. “It’s my fault — I should have told you ages ago, I’m sorry.”

/\

Xian Pu and Nabiki stared down at the couple sitting at their feet, clutching at each other as tears streamed down their cheeks, then looked up at each other. “Pig Boy?” the Amazon asked.

Nabiki grimaced. “I don’t know, but I can’t think of anything else that could cause this. Why would Ranma — ? Never mind, help me get them back into the apartment. Then you can get back on watch, I’ll tell you later,” she continued as she dropped to a crouch beside her sister and unofficial sister-in-law and reached out to gently shake Akane’s shoulder. “Come on, you two — I’m sure this is all very cathartic, but it’s also very public. Why don’t we get back inside and talk this out?”

Akane ignored her, but Ranma glanced up, then nodded. She dropped the hand stroking her lover’s hair to slip behind Akane’s knees, then with Xian Pu’s and Nabiki’s help rose to her feet with Akane in her arms.

A few minutes later, Ranma was sitting at the dining table with Akane in her lap, Nabiki sitting across from the pair. The middle Tendo plastered her patented smirk across her face. “So, Ranma, you finally told little sis about P-chan, did you?”

Ranma nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

“If you were going to wait this long, I wish you hadn’t,” Akane murmured against Ranma’s neck. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

Ranma sighed. “I wish I could say it was ‘cause I was honorbound not to. I did promise Ryoga I wouldn’t tell anyone before you first found P-chan, but if I was _really_ concerned about honor I wouldn’t have been in yer room with a tea kettle.” The redhead shrugged. “I was angry, and a little hurt, and wanted ta hurt ya back even if ya didn’t really know it. Then months had gone by, and I was afraid that if I told ya, you’d never talk ta me again, either ‘cause ya stayed angry or ‘cause ya hammered me so far I couldn’t find my way back. I’m sorry.”

Akane chuckled. “So we’re both idiots — me for not seeing the obvious, you for not telling me to begin with. Weren’t we a pair?”

“Yeah, I’m sure glad we’re all grown up now,” Ranma retorted, and Akane’s chuckle turned into a laugh, Ranma and Nabiki joining in.

After a moment, the laughter died down and Akane asked, “So why now?”

“Now?” Ranma shivered. “Akane, I don’t think ya know what it’s like ta be in a _real_ life-or-death fight. I mean, sure, ya were in the middle of the fight with Saffron, but ya weren’t doin’ the actual fighting, I don’t think ya felt the fear and anger and hatred and exhilaration and all the rest, all mixed together — did ya?”

“I — no, not really,” Akane agreed. “Sure, I was afraid, but ... it was you. You’d always come through for me before, I was sure you’d come through again — somehow.”

Ranma’s embrace tightened. “I almost didn’t, it was so close ... just a few seconds slower....” she whispered before falling silent as Akane’s own embrace tightened.

After a few minutes’ silence, Ranma cleared her throat. “Anyway, there’s nothin’ like that mix of feelings, they hit like a hammer. I needed ta know if ya were really ready, could hold ta yer center, and there’s no way ta fake those feelings, ta test if yer _really_ ready. The only thing I could come up with was —”

“Pure anger,” Akane finished as she straightened with a sigh, breaking their mutual embrace. “And I failed — badly.”

“Yeah, well, now we know — and _you_ know what that kind of anger feels like. You’ll get better,” Ranma asserted confidently. “And besides, ya gave me a new idea!” She held out her arm, concentrated, and the shield again flashed into existence. “Just the thing when we’re goin’ up against a bunch of sword-swingin’ maniacs,” Ranma boasted. “So now —”

Nabiki stood up and grabbed her book bag from beside her chair while pointing toward the bedrooms and grinning broadly. “ _Now_ , you two are going to go make up the best way possible, while _I’m_ going to go do some research at the infomat. That way I won’t have to try and study through the noise.”

She smirked at the two suddenly furiously blushing teenagers exchanging speculative looks, then strode to the apartment door. “Have fun, you two!” she tossed over her shoulder before closing the door on her way out.


	16. The NWC Ride: The Doctor Is In

“No, you don’t need to come with me to Nerima,” Ranma said again from where she sat on the couple’s bed. “Besides, you missed school yesterday because of me, you shouldn’t miss another one — especially since today I’m not recovering.”

Akane paused in the middle of buttoning up her school uniform’s blouse and gazed uncertainly at her lover. “Are you sure? Because ...”

“Yes, I’m sure!” Ranma shouted, then took a deep breath, reaching for her center as she winced at Akane’s suddenly stricken expression. “I’m sorry I shouted, I’m not really mad at you, but ... look, there’s something I realized a few days ago, just before I joined the fight. I’m tired of never going anywhere without one of you girls with me, tired of watching all the men around me. It’s time I stopped hiding.”

Akane gazed intently at the redhead for a long moment, then reluctantly nodded. “Perhaps you’re right,” she admitted.

“Of course she’s right, but she still aren’t going alone,” came Usagi’s voice from the doorway.

Akane whipped around in surprise, but Ranma just glanced over with a welcoming smile. “Mornin’, big sis, whatcha doin’ here?” she asked.

“I’m going with you, of course,” the blonde woman blithely asserted as she walked into the bedroom, her long braid swinging gently behind her almost like a tail, then waved a finger under Ranma’s nose at her sputtering denials that big sis was going to do any such thing. “Enough of that, it’s settled!” she bubbled, then sobered. “This isn’t about you proving you can go outside on your own, Ranma, it’s about me providing my little sister some backup when she talks to the nutcases that almost destroyed her life. There’ll be plenty of time for you to show you’re all better later.”

Akane closed her eyes, fighting for her own calm center against a rising tide of jealous anger. _I won’t fail Ranma again, I_ won’t, she thought desperately as she fought to keep her hands from curling into fists. Then a hand landed on her shoulder and her eyes flew open in surprise to find herself looking Usagi in the face. The teenager’s jealousy guttered out at the concern in Usagi’s eyes.

“Akane, I know you want to help, but in this case you have too much history with those lunatics, yourself,” Usagi softly said. “How much help will you be if you’re spending all your time holding yourself in check? And how will they react to you? Let big sis handle this one.”

Akane glanced over at Ranma and tried to give the redhead a smile at the concern radiating from her, then looked back at the blonde woman in from of her. “ ‘Big sis’?” she asked.

Usagi grinned. “Well, since Ranma’s my little sister, as close as you two are you must be, too.”

Akane chuckled, relief filling her as she felt Ranma relaxing, then nodded jerkily. “Yeah, well, seeing how I was one of the lunatics perhaps you’re right.” Ranma instantly started to protest, but Akane shook her head at the redhead. “It’s true, and you know it. If it hadn’t been for Happosai — that perverted bastard might have actually done us a favor, in the long run!” she finished with a bark of harsh laughter.

The raven-haired girl quickly finishing getting dressed, then stepped over and pulled Ranma into a brief hug and a deep kiss. “You be careful around those ... people, and I’ll be waiting for you when you get back, okay?” she requested. When Ranma smiled and nodded she picked up her bookbag and headed for the door.

/oOo\

Vanguard and Sailor Moon landed on the roof across the street from Dr. Tofu’s new office. “I still say we shoulda taken the train,” the ponytailed redhead grumbled.

Sailor Moon just laughed. “You’re just trying to prove how tough you are,” she said. “You’ve never used the train before, have you — inside the cars, I mean.”

“Well, no, I haven’t. Why pay ta ride inside when ya can ride on top fer free?”

“But you’ve heard all the horror stories about gropers, haven’t you?” Moon continued. “You just want to prove you can handle it, now that you’ve finally decided to come out of your shell.”

Vanguard opened her mouth to hotly deny her older sister’s claim, then paused at Moon’s knowing eyes. Finally, she shrugged. “Maybe,” she admitted. “I kinda figured the best way ta beat what yer afraid of is ta face it head on.”

“Thought so!” Moon crowed, then grinned. “Well, while the gropers aren’t _usually_ as bad as rumor makes them, you’re young and cute as a button” — she ignored Vanguard’s growl at that — “and then I’d have been trying to pull you off some poor salaryman that had no idea what kind of grief he was buying for himself. He’d be lucky to get away with some broken fingers, and if we didn’t end up being taken in by the police for assault, you’d get here all angry — not exactly the proper mood for handling the loonies.”

“Yeah, I guess yer right,” Vanguard reluctantly admitted. “Well, come on, let’s get down there and changed back and go see Kasumi and the Doc.” With that, she walked to the side edge of the roof and stepped over the edge to drop to the alley floor, Sailor Moon quickly following her.

/\

Kasumi looked up from the receptionist’s desk at the sound of the door to the clinic opening. “Welcome to — Ranma!” Standing up so fast she knocked her seat over, she was around the desk and pulling the young redhead into a hug.

“Having trouble breathing!” Ranma gasped out (after luxuriating in the embrace for a few seconds), and Kasumi hastily released her and stepped back, blushing faintly at the sound of the delighted chuckle coming from the young blonde woman standing behind her unofficial sister-in-law.

Ranma followed the motherly Tendo’s gaze and smiled. “Kasumi, this is the older sister I told ya about, Usagi. Usagi, this is Kasumi — the closest thing I had ta a mother before Mom came ta her senses.”

Usagi bowed respectfully. “I am delighted to meet you, Kasumi-san,” she said.

“Please, call me Kasumi — Ranma’s sister counts as family,” Kasumi replied, smiling, then sobered. “And don’t take Ranma’s praise at face value, my motivations weren’t always as pure as he — she — makes it sound, and my actions weren’t always ... proper.”

“Maybe not,” Ranma said with a shrug, “but at least ya weren’t hammering me inta next week or renting me ta other fiancées, and look where Akane and Nabiki ended up. And ya had a kind word for me when I needed it more often than not.”

“You are kind to say so,” Kasumi replied. Then, turning to Usagi, she bowed deeply. “And may I say it is an honor to meet Sailor Moon?” she added softly.

Ranma and Usagi froze. “What, me? What makes you think I’m Sailor Moon?” Usagi managed to gasp out.

“The fact that Ranma is Vanguard,” Kasumi replied calmly. “The feminine costume is an excellent distraction, the claws are new, and the change of hairstyle helps, as does the way Vanguard tends to appear and disappear, but she can’t disguise the way she moves when she fights. Almost everyone in Nerima knew she was Vanguard within days of the newsreel with her first appearance arriving in the movie theaters. Usagi-san, I suggest you change to Sailor Moon for the rest of your time here, since everyone you meet will know who you are anyway — your magic may blur your features, even on film, but it doesn’t change your hairstyle.”

The two stunned sisters exchanged glances. Ranma shrugged, and Usagi grimaced then reluctantly nodded. “Thank you for your suggestion, Kasumi. And call me Usagi.”

“Certainly, Usagi. Would the two of you care for some cookies?”

Both Ranma and Usagi nodded vigorously, and Kasumi smiled happily as she stepped out of the room for a moment, then returned with a tray stacked with her famous treats and set it down on the waiting room table in front of the two sisters.

Usagi instantly dove in, but Ranma paused. There was something about Kasumi bothering her ... she quickly calmed and focused (and again resolved to get to the point that she was _always_ centered) and again looked over Kasumi, focusing on the ki radiated from the young woman. Suddenly Ranma stiffened, a broad grin breaking out across her face. “Hey, Kasumi, how long have ya been pregnant, and why didn’t ya say anything?” she asked.

Kasumi froze. “I’m _pregnant_?” she squeaked.

“Ya mean ya didn’t know?” a now confused Ranma asked.

“I ... no ... I ... I’ll be right back.” Kasumi whirled and ran through the door into the clinic. “Tofu! Tofu! You won’t believe it!” echoed back into the waiting room. Within minutes she was back with an excited Dr. Tofu right behind her.

“Ranma, are you sure?” the kampo asked. “How can you tell so soon? You didn’t even touch her, and it’s only been a couple of weeks at most!”

“Did Kasumi tell ya how I was tryin’ ta use ki without mixin’ in emotions?” Ranma asked; Dr. Tofu nodded. “Well, I figured it out. And I found out that when I do that, I can ‘read’ other people’s ki a lot better — know how they’re feelin’, get a feel fer their personalities, what kind a condition they’re in, and with women when they’re pregnant. ‘Course, most of the other women that ‘felt’ like Kasumi were pretty obviously pregnant, but not all of ‘em. I guess whatever it is that changes a pregnant woman’s ki happens pretty early.”

Kasumi threw herself into Tofu’s arms and the beaming doctor whirled her in a circle before pressing his lips to hers. When they finally came up for air, a smirking Ranma said, “I guess it’s safe ta say yer the dad. So, when’s the wedding?”

Kasumi blushed. “Actually, we’re already married,” she admitted.

“What, and ya didn’t invite anyone! Akane’s gonna ... well, she wouldn’t hammer Kasumi even if she still did that, but _you_ , Doc — you’d better avoid her for awhile.”

“Oh, we haven’t had the ceremony, yet,” he hastened to assure the angry redhead. “We just signed the papers. We thought we’d hold the actual ceremony when ... well, when we thought we could without helping Genma find you, if he’s still looking. Nodoka isn’t sure.”

“Oh, right.” Ranma settled down, looking thoughtful. “Well, maybe today will help.”

“Today? It’s time?” Tofu asked as Kasumi went pale and clutched at his arm.

“It’s time ta ask him, anyway, the actual fight’s probably still a few months down the road,” Ranma said with a shrug. “I dropped in here ta see what ya know about some a’ the people I need ta talk to, what’s goin’ on with them right now — and ta see big sis, a’ course,” she added with a smile to a Kasumi still pulling herself together from her fright. “Doc, are ya still in for that, when the time comes?”

Tofu nodded, a hand circling his wife’s waist to settle on her stomach. “Now more than ever. I don’t have any appointments for a few hours, let me put up the ‘closed’ sign and then we can go back to the living quarters and talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a play on the western movie "The Magnificent Seven Ride" (not that I've seen it, but the situation seems to fit all of the Magnificent Seven movies).


	17. The NWC Ride: Lonely Souls

Ranma and Sailor Moon looked down at the Tendo Compound from the building across the street, Moon’s eyebrows rising. “That’s a good-sized piece of property. Considering how expensive the apartment Mamoru and I bought was, it must be worth a pretty penny, too,” she mused. “Just how wealthy are the Tendos?”

“Considerin’ that all three of Soun-san’s daughters have moved out and as far as I know not takin’ a single yen from their pop, not very. I think Soun-san has some sorta annuity, but I don’t know the details,” Ranma admitted with a shrug. “Wasn’t my business when I was livin’ here, and even less so now.”

“Got it,” Moon said, and looked at the redhead out of the corner of her eye. “So, little sis, are you ready for this?”

Ranma drew a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, as ready as I’m gonna be. Let’s do it.”

The two leaped down to the sidewalk, crossed the street and walked through the gate to the front door and Ranma knocked. After a few minutes, the door opened to show a tiny brown-haired girl wearing a loose dress much too big for her. “Yes, who ... Ranma!” she squealed and threw herself forward to wrap her arms around the redhead’s waist.

“Hinako-sensei? What are _you_ doing here?” Ranma gasped out through the wave of sheer joy as her arms dropped to circle the child’s shoulders.

“Taking care of Soun, of course, silly,” Hinako said brightly as she released the larger girl and stepped back, smiling up at her, then glanced at Ranma’s companion and her eyes went wide. “Are you really Sailor Moon?”

Moon nodded, smiling back even as she hid a wince at the dark circles under the bubbly child’s eyes. And did she look a little thin? “Yes, I’m Sailor Moon ... and Ranma’s big sister.”

“Oh, that is so neat!” Hinako burbled, glancing back and forth between the two and clapping her hands. “Soun is going to be so _happy_ you’re here!” Whirling, she dashed back into the house, shouting for Soun as she ran.

Ranma and Moon exchanged bemused glances, and Ranma shrugged and nodded toward the still-open door. “Come on, let’s catch up,” she said, and the two followed the sound of the shouting child.

As they walked in, Moon whispered, “Is that little girl the teacher you told me about — the ki-vampire?”

“Yup, she’s the one,” Ranma replied.

“She didn’t look so good, do you think she’s been sick?”

Ranma started to respond but broke off as the two sisters stepped into the family room, her face freezing up at the sight of the tall, raven-haired mustachioed man rising to his feet with a bouncing Hinako clinging to his hand, the bottle of sake he had been pouring from in the other. “Ranma! Is Akane and Nabiki with you?” Soun asked eagerly.

“No,” Ranma said, her voice arctic-cold. “And while Nabiki might be back sometime, fer Akane ya can just forget it — that girl knows how ta hold a grudge, and ya hurt her really bad.”

Soun swayed as the words hit home, then dropped the sake bottle. Ignoring the trail of spilled liquid as it rolled away, he fell to his knees and tears started pouring down his cheeks. Instantly, little Hinako was in his lap, arms around him as far as they’d go. “Don’t cry, Soun, Ranma’s just being a meanie, they’ll come home!” Turning to look at the visitors, her own tears running down her cheeks, she yelled, “Why are you being so mean? Take it back, or I’ll ... I’ll ... I’ll zap you!”

Moon laid a hand on Ranma’s shoulder, and the younger sister reached up to cover it with her own as she closed her eyes and drew in a shuddering breath as she deliberately let go of her center, then relaxed as she slowly blew it out. _Bein’ able ta sense how people really feel can make it tough ta hold a grudge._ “Guess I was madder than I thought,” the redhead murmured. Opening her eyes and giving Moon’s hand a squeeze, she knelt before the crying couple. “Hinako-sensei, do you have your fighting fish around here?” she asked, her voice warm and gentle.

“Uh ... yes, they’re in the kitchen,” the confused girl replied.

“Why don’t you go get them, bring them in here?” Ranma requested.

“It’ll help?”

“A lot.”

Well ... alright.” The child squirmed out of the still-crying Soun’s embrace and kissed him on the cheek. “You wait right here, I’ll be right back. Everything will be all right, you’ll see!” And with that she scampered out of the room.

/\

“A major ‘save the world’ battle in a few weeks, and my baby girl is going to be in the middle of it! How can you allow that!” Soun shouted from where he sat across the low table from Sailor Moon and Ranma, a now adult Hinako beside him. (She was being very careful how she sat, still wearing the same, now much too short and tight, dress — and no underwear, made obvious by the way the dress slid up when she sat down.)

Ranma took a moment to look around the room before answering. The damage Akane had inflicted when she’d knocked Genma into the garden had been fixed, but from weather damage to the floor not right away; and while there wasn’t garbage or dirt around, there was dust here and there, an ... untidy ... feel to the room — as if someone occasionally did a pass through but not the kind of day-to-day maintenance Kasumi had maintained. _Yeah, it’s a lot like yer apartment, isn’t it, Ranma?_ the pigtailed girl thought. Turning her attention back to her unofficial father-in-law, she shrugged. “A few weeks ta a few months. And it isn’t a matter of ‘allowing’ her ta help. We’re gonna need every high-level fighter we can get, and she’s workin’ hard ta fit inta that group — if she’s in, she’ll have _earned_ it. And she probably will.”

Soun swelled up, his demon head beginning to form, but a suddenly pale Hinako gently squeezed his hand and murmured, “Softly, dearheart.” As Soun settled back with a grumble, the older woman turned her attention back to Ranma. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’re recruiting warriors for the battle.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Ranma agreed, then looked over at Soun and sighed. “Soun-san, I ... was a little harsh, earlier, but not much. Akane doesn’t talk much about it, but she misses you. But she _is_ still very angry and hurt. But if ya train hard ta get back in shape and join us, I think she’ll be ready ta forgive ya. And I’ll put in a good word for ya.”

Soun straightened, his expression firming. “Of course, Ranma, it is the duty of a Martial Artist to protect the weak. I will begin training again immediately.”

“And you can count me in, as well!” Hinako firmly stated. Overriding Soun’s and Ranma’s instant protests, she continued, “From what you said, Ranma, these invaders depend on magic. I doubt they will have any defense from my Happy’s Five-Yen Obliteration and Happy’s Change Returned. And I’ll have Soun to protect me from any soldiers that get past that.”

Ranma paused in mid-objection, a thoughtful look on her face. “That might work. Let me think about it, I’ll get back ta ya on that,” she said finally. Glancing at the fresh tears beginning to pour down Soun’s face, she sighed. “Look, Soun, I won’t okay it unless I’m sure she’ll be pretty safe, but I wasn’t kiddin’ when I said we could use all the help we can get.” Then, rising to her feet, she continued, “And now I need ta see who else will sign on.”

Moon and Hinako quickly rose as well, Hinako picking up the bowl with the fighting fish in it. She walked over and picked up the now mostly empty bottle of saki from where it had rolled and handed it to Soun. “I’ll walk you to the door,” she said to the other two with a smile.

As soon as the three were out of earshot of the family room, Hinako said, “Ranma, I imagine you have some questions for me.”

“I ... well ... yeah, Hinako-sensei, are ya livin’ here now?” Ranma asked, reaching up to tug at her pigtail.

“Please, Ranma, just Hinako, I’m no longer your teacher. And yes, I am,” Hinako responded. She waited for a moment, then chuckled when Ranma blushed and glanced away. “Oh, Ranma, you are _such_ a gentleman, even when you’re stuck as a girl. To answer the questions you can’t bring yourself to ask, yes, I am sharing Soun’s bed. Yes, that includes sex. No, that sex doesn’t include my child-form, though Soun has no problem _just_ sleeping with me like that often.” For a moment her face turned sad. “I think Soun takes comfort from having a child around, even if I’m not really a child, sort of.”

Moon looked the woman over out of the corner of her eye as the trio reached the front door. The grown-up Hinako shared the same shadows under her eyes that her child-form had, and faint impressions of her ribs were visible through the tight dress. “Hinako-san, I just got married a few months ago, and I’ve been finding things a little boring during the day,” the blonde said softly. “My husband works, and my friends mostly have careers or college. Would you mind if I visited once or twice a week?”

“Oh, would you? That would be wonderful!” Hinako enthused, smiling broadly. “I’ve been lonely, too, since I quit my teaching job and moved here.”

“I would be happy to,” Moon assured her. _And I’ll be able to see to it you get in some decent meals, and some help with the housework._

Ranma and Moon made their farewells, then quickly crossed the street and took to the rooftops. Several minutes and some distance later, the two settled on the sloping roof of one of the taller buildings in Nerima and looked out across the district. “Well, that went better than I expected,” Ranma finally commented. “Lucky Hinako-sensei was there.”

“Yes, _Hinako_ was very helpful,” Usagi agreed. “Were you serious about allowing her to join us?”

“I’ll check with Puu first,” the younger girl said with a shrug. “If Hinako-sen — Hinako’ll make a difference and has a good chance a’ livin’ through it, yeah. Were ya serious about visitin’ Hinako regularly?”

“Of course I was, that girl — woman, rather — has been working too hard and not eating enough. Though if the finale happens in only a couple of weeks it might not make much of a difference. Do you really think it could happen that fast? Setsuna hasn’t said anything about it.”

Ranma shrugged. “I’ve had an idea on that, might speed things up. But that’s somethin’ else I need ta talk ta Puu about first.” With a sigh, the redhead stood up. “Come on, let’s get the rest a’ this day over with and head home.”


	18. The NWC Ride: Greed Is Good

Akane shuddered, as an image of Ranma and Ukyo once again flashed across her mind, laughing together, reminiscing, renewing their old friendship ... _Stop it! Ranma loves you, chose you over Ukyo, always did, you_ know _that!_

Banishing the images and focusing again on the teacher as she _again_ sought out the calm at her center, Akane relaxed a little even as she hastily started writing when she realized that he was assigning that evening’s homework. Then he gathered up his books and was gone, and she relaxed even more — one more class down in the neverending day. At least she was getting plenty of practice at maintaining her center.

From the desk next to her, Chibi-Usa leaned over, the pink-haired girl looking concerned. “Akane, are you all right?” she whispered. “You seem a little pale.”

“I’m fine, just wondering how Ranma’s doing,” Akane murmured back. _At least, I will be once I get out of here and Ranma gets home. At least Usagi’s with her._ “I hope you’ve been taking good notes,” the former Tendo added, “I’ve missed some.”

Chibi-Usa nodded, then straightened as the next teacher entered the classroom, shooting one more concerned look at her fellow Musketeer before facing forward.

/oOo\

Nodoka knelt in the small yard of her tiny house, the middle-aged woman tending the flowers planted along its edge while trying to ignore the snores coming from the house’s open window. Sitting back, she sighed as she reached up to make sure her auburn hair wasn’t coming too badly out of its fastenings as she looked over her morning’s work, trying and failing to take some satisfaction in what she’d accomplished even as her thoughts turned to her son turned daughter.

_I understand why Ranma had to leave Nerima. I even understand why she can’t visit here, and why I can visit her only when I’m absolutely certain that Genma or Soun won’t follow me. But it’s so_ hard _! I missed the long years of the training trip, and in a way the months that he spent hiding from me as ‘Ranko’, and now that he’s — she’s — adjusting to being a woman all the time, when I can be a true help, I’m missing that as well! And all because that husband of mine, that ... that ..._ Nodoka broke off her rising mental rant, then forced her hand to unclench from around the handle of the spade she’d been using. Putting down the tool, she shook her hand in an effort to wave away the tingles of returning blood to the extremity.

“Hey, Mom!”

Nodoka looked around at the shout, eyes widening at the sight of her short redheaded daughter walking down the street toward her with a slightly taller blonde young woman walking beside her in a Sailor Moon costume. _No, not a Sailor Moon costume, that must be Sailor Moon herself — Ranma’s older past-life sister! But why —_

Rising to her feet, Nodoka waited for the two to approach. “Mom, this’s my sister, Sailor Moon,” her daughter said.

The blonde bowed deeply, her braid sliding over her shoulder to dangle in front of her for a moment before she straightened. “It is an honor to meet you at last,” she said with a bright smile.

“And I, you,” Nodoka replied. “It’s good to finally meet the woman that has done so much for my daughter when I was unable to.” As Moon shot her a quick glance at the harsh undertone, Nodoka continued, “As happy as I am to see the two of you, why are you here? I thought you had to avoid Genma.”

Ranma shrugged. “Yeah, I did. But now, Akane’s gotten good enough in the Art that if he was stupid enough ta try an’ hurt her she could kill him, so she’s probably safe. Nabiki isn’t, but she never will be and we can’t hide from him forever. Besides, I’m gonna need his help.”

“I see. Well, come in and have some tea.” A particularly loud snore came through the window, and Nodoka grimaced. “And while you’re doing that, I’ll wake up Genma.”

The three entered and Ranma and Moon knelt at the low table as Nodoka served the tea. As her mother disappeared into the bedroom, Moon leaned over and whispered in Ranma’s ear, “Are you doing that sense emotions thingie?”

Ranma paused, tea cup halfway to her lips, and shook her head. “No, I stopped during the visit ta the dojo, things got a little intense. Why?”

“You might want to turn it back on.”

Ranma nodded, then put her teacup down and rose to her feet, Moon hastily following her example, as her father appeared in the doorway and stalked toward them. He was bleary-eyed, his gi stained and dirty, and he was preceded by the stench of stale sake.

Ranma sought the calm at her center without closing her eyes, not daring to take her gaze off her father, and almost reeled at the onslaught of anger, disgust and disdain radiating from her father. Then her mother appeared in the bedroom doorway and Ranma hastily dropped out of her calm state as embarrassment, hatred and despair were added to the overcharged emotional mix.

“So, boy, are you ready to finally redeem your honor?” Genma demanded.

Ranma fell into the Anything Goes School’s deceptively laid back basic stance. “Yeah, like ya have a clue what honor means,” she shot back. “No, I’m not marryin’ Tendo-san, now or ever, so forget it!”

“Then if you are so lost to honor as to disregard your father and master, you are banned from using the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts,” Genma intoned.

Ranma snorted. “Right, like yer a master a’ anything,” she said. “Don’t masters normally get certified by _their_ masters? When did the freak ever do that? Not that it matters,” she continued. “I’ve changed my style so much over the last few years that it’s not really Anything Goes anymore.”

Reddening with anger, Genma tensed to lunge forward only to freeze as his daughter added, “Tell me, Pop, how would ya like ta get enough money ta live off of fer the rest a’ yer life? Free sake forever.”

“And where would you get that kind of money?” he scoffed even as greedy ember seemed to flicker in his eyes.

“Aren’t payin’ much attention, are ya?” Ranma retorted, nodding to his sister beside her. “This’s Sailor Moon, leader of the Sailor Senshi. _They_ have money, lots of it.”

Moon stiffened, opening her mouth to protest, then paused. After a moment she closed her mouth and nodded as Genma glanced at her.

Genma stared at her for a long moment, then looked back at his daughter. “So, what would I have to do? Leave you and your bitch alone? Are you trying to buy what you can’t win through honest fighting?”

Moon found herself stepping away from her suddenly tense younger sister as the temperature around the redhead dropped, then hastily caught her balance as she slipped on the frost radiating out from around Ranma’s feet. For the first time in months, Ranma had called on the Soul of Ice.

“Ya know, Pop, the only reason I’m here is ‘cause Akane’s gotten good enough that she can kill ya if ya attack her, so don’t push yer luck.” Taking a deep breath, she continued, “No, I’m not here ta pay ya off ta leave us alone. There’s a fight comin’ up, a big one. We need all the high-level fighters we can get. Join us fer the entire fight, and I’ll see to it ya live comfortably fer the rest of yer life, without liftin’ a finger.”

Genma stared angrily at his daughter for a long moment, then nodded curtly. “I’m in, when and where?”

“Not sure yet, it’s up ta the people doin’ the attackin’, though we’ll have enough forewarnin’ ta get into position fer an ambush. I’ll let ya know when we do.” The redhead waved a hand, then tossed her father a roll of yen she’d plucked out of thin air. “Here’s a down payment, go get drunk or somethin’.”

Genma untied the roll, and his eyes widened at the number and denomination of bills. In a flash, he was out the front door and gone. Ranma closed her eyes and sought her center, doing her best to ignore the worn-feeling despair radiating from her mother, and reached out to sense the ki filling the space around the three, then relaxed. “He’s gone fer real. Come on, Mom, we’re headed out ta grab somethin’ ta eat.”

“I will need some time to prepare,” Nodoka said. “Do you wish to wait that long?”

Ranma waved it off. “Naw, just some clean clothes, no need ta go all formal, it won’t be that high-scale — just some fast food and a chance ta talk.”

“Of course. Please, make yourselves at home while I get washed up and changed,” the older woman said, pasting on a smile, and hurried from the room.

As the two sisters knelt back down at the low table, Moon leaned over to whisper, “Ranma, she can’t stay here.”

Ranma nodded. “Agreed. Somethin’ else ta talk ta Puu about.”

“Oh, so that’s where the money came from, I’d wondered.”

“Uh, actually, that was our food money,” Ranma admitted, shamefaced. “I’ll have ta see if Puu’ll spot me enough money ta replace it when I talk ta her ‘bout Mom an’ Pop.”

“You mean you didn’t clear it with her before making the offer to your father!” Moon hissed, exasperated.

Ranma shrugged. “No, it didn’t occur ta me ‘til we were almost here. But considerin’ how old Puu is and her ability ta look at the future she’s gotta be rich, right?”

“Well, yes,” Moon admitted, “but it’s the principle of the thing. You can’t just go around making promises for other —”

She broke off as Nodoka swept back into the room, dressed in a fresh kimono and her hair back into place, her smile more natural now. Ranma relaxed slightly at the happiness driving away the pain her mother had been radiating. “So, where are we going?” Nodoka asked cheerily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the chapter title is a paraphrase of Douglas's iconic statement in the movie "Wall Street."


	19. The NWC Ride: Back at the Ranch

Sailor Mercury, once again crouching by a car, stared at the screen of the Mercury Computer she held. The blue-haired Senshi of Ice was barely aware of her fellow Senshi, the bubbly blonde Sailor Venus and the grimly determined brown-haired Sailor Jupiter, providing cover beside her. She was completely unaware of the kangaroos bouncing around in front of them except as a rotating silhouette on her screen — at least, you could call them kangaroos if you ignored the outthrust, gaping, slavering jaws and rows of teeth to do a Great White proud; the long claws protruding from the even longer individuated toes on their lower feet; and the long whipping tail with the large, sharp chiton-like maybe-stinger on the end.

“This’s getting old!” Venus grumbled beside her as she sent a line of glowing chain whipping down-range toward one kangaroo rex (as she’d instantly dubbed them on first sight). “Yes!” she exulted as the chain wrapped around its prey. Dropping the chain’s end, she lifted her hand and clenched it into a fist. Instantly, the chain contracted around the kangaroo rex and Mercury and Jupiter winced as the crackle of shattering bones was almost drowned out by the thing’s scream before it was choked off in an explosion of blood fountaining out of its mouth.

Venus spread out her fingers from her outstretched fist and the chain around the messily convulsing creature shimmered and vanished. “One down!” she shouted, then returned to her earlier complaint. “This’s the second time in the last couple of weeks I’ve needed to come out, I’m missing a recording session right now, and I think my agent is wondering if I’m on drugs or something.”

Jupiter shrugged, her pony tail bouncing, as she sent a bolt of lightning flying and another pain-filled shriek filled the air along with the smells of burning hair and roasting flesh. “Bitch about it later,” she advised, eyes sweeping the road around them as the two monsters left fell back further and continued their back and forth bouncing. “The people maybe filming this shouldn’t have mikes strong enough to hear us if we keep our voices down, but you never know.”

Venus grumped but fell silent as she sent another chain snaking out only to wrap around a curbside tree’s trunk as her target dodged.

“Jupiter’s right.” _And sometime I’m going to get you to tell us what happened in London that was so bad you hid inside your bubblehead persona,_ Mercury thought absentmindedly as she hit a few keys, then grinned at the sight of the data that flashed onto her screen. “Okay, these ones are clean — no magic power sources for mystic attacks, they’re purely natural. At least, as natural as a kangaroo crossed with a shark and a touch of spider tossed in can be,” she added, looking up finally at the things crossing back and forth in front of them across the street. There was something bothering her about the way they were acting, something familiar ... and then she had it — they were acting just like the rocky monstrosities from two days before. _Pack mentality!_

She whirled in place, beginning to rise from her crouch even as a pair of kangaroo rexes slammed down onto the roof and hood of the car the Senshi were using to cover their backs, crumpling in the metal surfaces around their feet. “Venus, about face!” she shouted, even as her computer vanished and she brought her hands into a position that resembled holding an invisible spear pointed at one of the newcomers. Then the spear was no longer invisible, the ice reflecting the sunlight as it sprang into existence between her circled fingers, the butt smashing backwards against the asphalt even as the point’s explosive growth slammed it forward through the chest of the newcomer she’d targeted.

Venus had whirled at Mercury’s shout, and her chain flickered into existence and lashed out, circling tight around the neck just below the jaw of the monster Mercury hadn’t targeted. Even as the thing’s barbed tail whipped forward, an energy heart formed around the chain and flew along its links, growing larger and brighter as it went. As the tail’s spike slammed into and through Venus’s chest and out her back, the spinning heart slammed into the kangaroo rex’s throat and head, vaporizing everything above the shoulders and spraying bits of bone, flesh and brains against the brick wall and glass window of the building behind them. The creature’s torso dropped straight down onto the hood of the car beside Mercury’s kill with a thud, blood spouting from what was left of the neck stump to splash a narrow ‘V’ on the street and running down the side of the car to pool around the tire.

Mercury heard Venus’s explosive grunt at the spike’s impact. Quickly scanning the street and sidewalk behind them and finding nothing even as she heard the thud of a body on the street at her side, she whirled to Venus and gasped at the sight of the tail protruding from her friend’s chest and the spike protruding from between her back and the asphalt.

“Jupiter, take it to them, finish them off!” she shouted. As her green-skirted friend charged forward toward the last two kangaroo rexes with a shout, lightning arcing ahead of her, Mercury formed an ice blade and with one quick slice cut off the tail a few inches about her friend’s chest. _At least it missed her heart — blood’s seeping out, not pumping,_ the smartest Senshi thought, grasping for what straws of comfort she could find.

“A little ...” Venus started to whisper, then broke off to cough up a gout of bright red blood. “ ... little slow, there,” she continued. Gasping for breath, she added, “Hate exercise, but ... think sprints would help?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Mercury replied with forced cheer as her ice blade vanished to be replaced again be the Mercury Computer.

She looked up as Jupiter dropped to a crouch beside the two, careful not to touch them as a leftover charge sparkled around her hands and up her arms. “Oh, kami!” the Senshi of Lightning breathed, face going white at the sight of Venus even as she touched the car beside them to bleed off the last of the charge. “What do we do?”

Mercury ignored Venus’s attempted cheery whispered “Hey, watch it, you’re scaring me!” and subsequent cough to clear out fresh blood. Bringing up the city map and pinpointing their location she frantically typed in a search and: “There! A hospital a mile to the north. Jupiter, bring Venus and follow me.” Pausing just long enough for Jupiter to gather up their fallen comrade, she dashed across the street to the nearest alley and used the close in walls to bounce from side to side up to the roof then raced off toward the unseen hospital.

As she ran ahead of Jupiter and her burden, she summoned her communicator and hit the button for their leader. As Sailor Moon’s face appeared in the tiny screen, she asked without preamble, “Moon! Where are you?”

“Nerima — I’m in Nerima with little sis. Why?” Moon responded, a confused look on her face.

“Damn, too far. By the time you could get here, Venus will either be healed on her own or dead,” Mercury said distractedly as she leaped across an alley to a new rooftop, whirling to trot backwards for a moment to make sure Jupiter was still with her.

“What?” came Moon’s shout from the tiny communicator in her hands and, on seeing her green-skirted friend land safely on the roof with Venus still in her arms, she turned her attention back to its screen as she whipped back around forward.

“We’re headed to the hospital right now, I’ll call you back as soon as we know one way or the other,” she hastily told her Princess, then shut off the communicator and sent it away so she could concentrate on running while searching for a sight of the hospital. And ... it came into view slightly off to one side, and Mercury angled over toward it. Within a minute the Senshi were back on the ground and charging across the road toward the emergency entrance.

Every eye in the emergency waiting room turned to them at the sound of Mercury smashing through the swinging doors with Jupiter and her burden right behind her. “Medic! Right now!” the blue-mini-skirted Senshi shouted.

The young man that had been in the glass-separated receptionist cubicle slammed through the swinging doors and ran toward them, shouting over his shoulder for a gurney. His eyes widened at the sight of blood staining the entire front of Venus’s uniform and splashed on Jupiter’s chest. More blood spread across both girls as Venus coughed up a fresh gout and drew a shuddering breath. “What do you need?” he asked as two more nurses rushed into the room with a gurney between them.

“As soon as we pull out that tail fragment Venus’s uniform should close up, and that’ll keep her from bleeding out,” Mercury said as she watched Jupiter gently lay their friend on the gurney with the help of the two nurses. “But it’s right through a lung. What we need is some way to keep Venus from drowning in her own blood before the regeneration ability we all have can take care of the internal bleeding.”

“Right, we can do that,” he said, and strode toward to doors the gurney had just come out of. “Follow me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, this isn't entirely canonical when it comes to the Senshi's attacks. I figure the Senshi are going to have come up with some variations in the last few years.


	20. The NWC Ride: Intermission

As Sailor Mercury’s image vanished from her communicator’s tiny screen, Sailor Moon looked up to stare at her sister’s blanched face across the ramen restaurant table they were sitting at, then knocked her chair over as she shot to her feet. “I have to go, now!” she said, then turned to bow to the table’s third occupant. “My apologies, Saotome-san, but my friends need me.”

“Of course,” Nodoka said, nodding as Ranma also quickly rose.

“Ya do realize that there’s no way we can get there in time,” Ranma warned.

“I know, but Yasuko, I have to _try_ ,” Moon insisted.

“Yeah, I know,” Ranma agreed, “let’s go.” Then, glancing over her sister’s shoulder, added, “Or maybe not.”

Moon turned to see what Ranma was looking at, and her eyes widened at the sight of the emerald-haired young woman dressed in the Senshi’s distinctive uniform, this one with a black miniskirt, approaching them from the restaurant’s entrance. “Pluto! Venus, will she be all right?” she asked apprehensively.

Pluto smiled. “She’s going to have a very unpleasant time while she heals, but they’ll keep her alive,” she assured Moon.

Moon’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Oh, thank the kami,” she sighed, then straightened and waved a hand at the only unused seat at the table as Ranma sat back down. “Have a seat? We’ve already eaten, but I’m sure you know that. After all, you know everything, right?” she added, smiling impishly.

Pluto looked over the debris covering the tabletop even as she felt something inside her relax. Usagi had forgiven her for the way she hadn’t helped Ranma after learning he was her reincarnated sister Yasuko, the same way she forgave everyone given half a chance — she had even offered what comfort she could when Pluto’s memory of the Camlann battlefield had hit her like a hammer. But there had remained a slight reserve that hadn’t been there before, and that was very atypical for the outwardly ditzy blonde — very slight, perhaps only in Pluto’s mind, and at last that reserve was gone.

_So, let’s return the favor, shall we?_ the Senshi of Time thought as she suppressed a grin. She shot her young friend a sly smile, and replied, “You don’t need to be the Senshi of Time to know that the Moon sisters have eaten here — the casualties to their appetites make that impossible to miss.”

Ranma and Moon both blushed, as a still-seated Nodoka chuckled. “And in Ranma’s case, this is an improvement. At least she actually chews her food now, instead of simply inhaling it — though I’m still convinced she uses meals as speed exercises.”

“Mom, I’m not no lady!” Ranma protested.

“No, you aren’t,” Nodoka instantly agreed, wincing slightly. “But there are some rules of common courtesy that apply across the board.”

“Uh ...” Ranma turned to Pluto. “So Puu, if ya aren’t here ta whisk us off ta save Venus, why are ya here?”

Pluto and Nodoka exchanged an amused look, but Pluto took pity on her young friend and accepted the change of subject. “Well, you and Moon were about to go dashing off for Juuban. This is the first really good day your mother’s had since the last time you saw her, you would have shamed your shadows by leaving them in the dust, and since you have some questions for me, I thought I’d drop in and make everyone’s day a success. Shall we move to somewhere a bit more private?”

Moon and Ranma glanced around at the other customer trying very hard to not appear to be listening, and blushed again. “Yeah, let’s do that,” Ranma agreed. “Good thing it’s schooltime, or we’d be mobbed by fangirls instead of havin’ everybody tryin’ ta act like they’re ignoring us.”

The three settled the bill (or tried to, rather — the proprietor refused to accept any payment) and quickly left.

/oOo\

The polite disregard of the people around the four continued, and they soon found a quiet corner of a nearby park. Nodoka and Pluto settled onto a bench, and Moon and Ranma flopped down on the grass nearby (Moon carefully looking around first to make sure no one was close enough to get a good look at the amount of over-exposure that caused).

“So, Ranma what are your questions?” Pluto asked.

“Yeah, like you don’t know,” Ranma replied with a grin from where she lay on the grass. “I oughta just have ya give the answers.”

The redhead closed her eyes, found her calm center (she’d shut down her ki-sensing ability again at the restaurant — the awed respect had made her distinctly uncomfortable), and reached out to search the grounds around her for anyone they might have missed. _Nope, just Mousse and another Amazon, I’ll hafta get her name some day. Interestin’ how Shampoo and Mousse never show up together, seein’ how hooked on each other they are._

“Alright, we’re clear,” she announced, opening her eyes again. “First, can we get Mom away from Pop — her own place, maybe? It’s not like he’s gonna know if she’s there once the fight’s over, anyway, considerin’ how much time he’s gonna spend drunk.”

Glancing at her suddenly stiff mother, she added, “Mom, one thing I finally figured out is that ya can take honor too far — when it hurts ya or others an’ helps no one, it’s time ta get practical. You’ve given Pop — Genma — more loyalty than he’s ever deserved, it’s time ta get out before ya snap and kill yerself — or him.” With a chuckle, she added, “Think of it as lookin’ out for him by removin’ a potential threat.”

“But I’m his wife!” Nodoka protested.

“So don’t divorce him, just move out,” Ranma said with a shrug. “It’s not like it’ll matter much — I doubt he’ll last long after he gets his payment for the fight, the way he likes his sake.”

“But where will I go?” Nodoka asked hesitantly. “What income I have is in Genma’s name, it wouldn’t follow me.”

“Saotome-san —” Pluto began.

“Just Nodoka, please,” Nodoka broke in. “As important as you were to Yasuko and are to Ranma, you’re all but family.”

“Nodoka, then,” Pluto started over with a grateful smile. “You seem to be at ease with Ranma’s current relationship with Akane, would you have a problem with sharing a house with a similar couple? I should warn you that the house also comes with a teenage girl and a single woman.”

Unnoticed by Nodoka, Ranma and Moon shot Pluto startled looks. “I wouldn’t want to impose ...” she said hesitantly.

“It wouldn’t be an imposition,” Pluto responded. “One of the couple is a race car driver and the other is a concert violinist, both with busy schedules, and I’m rarely home. And have you ever tried to get a teenager to clean up anything beyond her own room? You would no more be able to keep from taking over the cooking and cleaning than you can stop breathing, and it would be a big help.”

Nodoka gaped. “Move in ... with you?”

“I ... Pluto, it would be great to have Ranma’s mother that close, but is it wise?” Moon reluctantly asked, sitting up. “Anyone that tracks her might learn who we are.”

Pluto shrugged. “The same is true for anyone that makes the connection between Ranma and Vanguard, which is currently at least a quarter of Nerima, maybe half,” she said offhandedly. “I don’t think having Nodoka move in with the Outers will increase our risk much.”

“Then it’s settled!” Ranma asserted. “Mom, you let us know the next night Pop — Genma — gets drunk, and me and Akane, and some a’ the Senshi, will come out and help ya get packed and moved.”

Nodoka hesitated, but finally nodded and a broad, relieved smile spread across her face.

“Wonderful, welcome home,” Pluto said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I must warn you, though, the race car driver is a bit of a tomboy.”

As Nodoka snorted a laugh, Pluto turned back to Ranma. “So, next question?”

“Trainin’,” Ranma answered instantly also sitting up. “Thanks ta Akane losing her temper — I pushed her into it, Mom, on purpose, a test,” she added as Nodoka stiffened. Turning back to Pluto, she continued, “Thanks ta Akane and some cameraman that asked an interestin’ question, I have this.” Reaching out, the shimmering energy of her ki claws appeared along her forearm, again in the kite shape of a shield carried by a movie knight of Camelot.

Ranma admired it for a moment. “Cool, huh?” she asked, grinning at the gasps from her sister and mother. Then reaching out her other hand, she said, “And I think I can do ... this!” More energy sprang from her empty hand, shaped to match the swords that had accompanied the knights’ shields.

“Thinkin’ a’ the tight quarters my part of the final fight will be in and the way I almost got blinded the other day, the shield’ll come in handy, though I’m thinkin’ a’ some kinda eye shield as well — maybe somethin’ like Mercury’s.” At Nodoka’s gasp of dismay, Ranma smiled reassuringly at her mother. “I’m fine, Mom, all healed up — an’ I did it on my own, I can do it again if I need to.”

To Pluto, she continued, “However, as useful as it is, for some reason we never really came up with shields of our own here in Japan, maybe ‘cause a’ the fact that the old-time samurai were also archers. So I don’t know anybody that can train me in how ta use one. Do you know anybody?”

“Well, as luck would have it —” Ranma and Moon groaned, and Pluto laughed. Sobering after a minute, Pluto said, “I’ll explain later,” to a confused Nodoka. Then to Ranma, “Actually, in this case it _is_ luck, pure and simple. There are very few that have made any effort to keep the old European weapon arts alive, and those mostly as a hobby, like the Society for Creative Anachronism in the United States. I do have a few contacts in America, but never imagined that European sword and shield would be a skill set we’d need.

“However, as it turns out, one family I’ve known since the American Revolution still sends its sons, and now daughters, into the American military for at least a few years of service if not a lifetime career. One of those sons, Douglas MacKenzie, is a Marine stationed in Japan, and he has a reputation as one of the SCA’s toughest fighters — in large part because he treats it as an actual combat art, rather than a sport. He’s even been in discussion with scholars working to recreate the old styles from medieval training manuals.

“But our window of opportunity is brief — he has plenty of leave time he can use, but in about a month the increasing tensions between the United States and the European Union since the US withdrew from the United Nations and told it to leave New York City will lead to the European nations dissolving NATO in retaliation. When that happens, Doug’s unit will be called back to the US.”

Ranma simply stared at her in confusion, but Moon’s face paled. “Kami help us,” the older sister whispered, “how long until feelings improve between the US and Europe?”

“Never,” Pluto replied, eyes going sad, “not until both empires have collapsed into chaos. They are planting the seeds that would have eventually led to the death of most of the human race. Just because _we_ are going to miss the worst of it and the world will now come out better than ever doesn’t mean there aren’t some hard times ahead.”

Taking a deep breath, she straightened. “But that is for the future, we have more immediate concerns. Ranma, Doug will be able to train you, but you’re going to need to leave town for it.”

Ranma opened her mouth to protest, but Pluto continued, “It’s because of the answer to your next question. You’re right, I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before. The Arlanans aren’t just testing us to learn our capabilities, they’re wearing us down — weakening us to the point that they think victory is inevitable but not easy. And before your awakening changed everything, they would have been right if not for Saturn’s most devastating attack, the one they never saw.

“So, if we go with your idea of pulling out any of us wounded badly enough that the Arlanans will have good reason to think them dead or crippled, it’ll advance the date of their invasion to as short as a month. I suspect we’re proving more resilient than they expected.”

“So if I drop out, and Venus drops out, and anyone else really hurt later, then we push the date up, get this over with these killers turned murderers, and cut down on property damage and save lives, sounds like a winner to me!” Ranma said.

_And maybe it happens fast enough that Akane won’t be ready,_ Pluto thought to herself, seeing the little smile on Ranma’s lips.

Something must have shown on her face, because Moon gave her a long measuring look before turning to her sister. “But Ranma, where will you practice? You’ll need more room than your apartment, and you can’t train in the park, not with your sword — you’ll draw a crowd, and maybe the Arlanans’ attention. And will one month be enough time to learn a new style?”

“One month? Sure, no sweat, plenty of time!” Ranma asserted proudly, then added after a moment, “Well so long as I’m not disturbed. It’s been awfully quiet since the day I got locked, but there’s no sayin’ when it might start up again. Yeah, you’re right, Pluto, I’ll need somewhere outta the way.”

“You have one already,” Pluto said, then when Ranma looked at her curiously added, “The Amazons. They’ve been moving into that town up in the mountains, and they’ll be happy to make sure nobody bothers you, and supply more sparring partners at the same time.”

Ranma made a face, but reluctantly nodded again. “Yeah, yer right, but all the kowtowing from most a’ them gets a little old. Alright, if ya could arrange for MacKenzie-san ta help train me, I’ll talk ta Cologne about movin’ ta the new village for awhile.”

“Deal,” Pluto agreed, keeping her smile firmly in place. _And this’ll give you a chance to get to know your people a little better._

“So, next question?” Ranma asked.

“What philosophers I might know?”

“Yup, that’s the one,” Ranma agreed.

Nodoka and Moon stared at the redhead. “Why?” Moon asked. “We’re just a bit busy right now, and ... well, you’ve never seemed to be interested in it before.”

Ranma sighed. “It’s ‘cause a’ my claws ... sword ... whatever,” she replied. “Before, sure, I did the meditation thing — it’s good for learnin’ how to sense and control yer ki. But I never went in for all the rules and weird stuff that the monks that helped Pop — Genma — teach me insisted on tacking on top. I figured it was just nonsense. But now ... this new technique, new _weapon_ I’ve come up with is just too easy!”

“ _Easy?_ ” Nodoka and Moon chorused.

Ranma nodded. “Easy. All ya need is ta be able ta sense and manipulate yer ki, and be able ta keep yer feelings from mixin’ in. The first I’ve been able ta do for a decade, the second almost as long, and the last is — okay, it’s hard, but it doesn’t take years of work increasin’ yer levels of ki ta make it possible. The amount of ki pretty much everyone has is enough.”

Nodoka and Moon glanced at each other. Nodoka shrugged. “I suspect your definition of ‘easy’ is a little different from everyone else’s,” she said with a wry smile. “But granted it’s easier, why is this a problem?”

“Because it’s also lethal,” Ranma replied, face turning grim. “So far, Akane’s the only other person I’ve taught the technique to. In a stand-up spar with ... Genma, she’d lose, badly. But in an up close fight to the death, give her a second’s warning and he’s dead meat, no question. If I teach others, they’ll eventually teach more, and then — just how many people able ta kill at the drop of a hat with no way ta take that away from them and no way ta keep them locked up are goin’ ta be walkin’ around? And what are they gonna be like?”

A suddenly thoughtful Nodoka nodded. “I see, so you want to teach others when _not_ to fight as well as how.”

“Right,” Ranma agreed. “So, Puu, any more rabbits to pull out of yer hat?”

Pluto shook her head. “Sorry, Ranma. I can talk to you about the rules I’ve come up with over the millennia and why, point you to some other people and books, but in the end, if it is to mean anything to you, you are going to come up with your own code. For this, there are no simple, one-size-fits all answers.”

“Damn, I was afraid ya were gonna say that,” Ranma groused, then shrugged. “Oh well, that’s for after we win, anyway.”

Sword and shield vanishing as she re-absorbed her ki, Ranma stretched, then stood up. “As great a break as this has been, I still have another stop before headin’ home and Akane’s gonna be pissed if I’m not there when she gets home from school.” She glanced at her suddenly stiff mother, and said softly, “I wish ya could just come with us now. But the three of us aren’t enough ta get ya packed, much less moved, and who knows what ... Genma would do with yer stuff if ya just leave it.

“Actually, come ta think of it, we don’t need ta wait till he gets drunk on his own!” Ranma continued, face brightening. “Puu, this Friday slip Mom an extra roll of yen Genma can just happen ta find, and when he leaves we can come over and get her outta there. Okay?”

“Of course,” Pluto agreed, and Nodoka relaxed somewhat — at least her ordeal had an end, even if it had to continue a few more days.

/\

As Nodoka stepped forward and enfolded her daughter in a farewell embrace, Moon quietly pulled Pluto to the side. “Ranma’s little plan to keep Akane out of the fight isn’t going to work, is it?” she whispered.

The Senshi of Time gently shook her head. “No, it won’t,” she replied, “and a good thing, too — Akane’s presence significantly improves our chances of victory.”

“And her chances of living through it?” Moon asked.

Pluto hesitated for a moment, then said, “As good as anyone’s that’s not a Senshi — or Ranma.”

Moon gazed at her old friend, and there was something — speculative — in that gaze, something that made Pluto distinctly uncomfortable.

“Hey, Moon, say yer goodbyes and let’s get movin’!” Ranma called, and Pluto almost slumped in relief when Moon glanced over at her sister with a smile.

“Right!” the blond girl said, and smiled at Pluto. “So I’ll see you at the next meeting if not in another fight first?”

Pluto agreed, and turned with her to say farewell to Nodoka, suddenly eager to get back to the Time Gates. She didn’t understand what her Princess was thinking, and it worried her...


	21. The NWC Ride: The Once and Future Friend

The cute “waitress” finished wiping down the table as he looked over the last of the lunch rush — such as it was. Business had been dropping off for months, and even his refusal to continue accepting any wage at all would not be enough to keep Ucchan’s from going under if something didn’t change soon.

_Or someone,_ Konatsu thought as he turned, his shiny, long dark hair falling along his waitress uniform swishing behind him. As he carried the tub of dishes toward the back, he shot a look toward the teenage girl behind the cooking station grill and carefully kept his despairing fear from showing. Ukyo didn’t look different at a glance, her clothes were as clean as her career allowed, she seemed to move as smoothly as ever. But there was something missing — from her eyes, maybe, perhaps her hair was a bit dull. And her cooking had become routine — not _bad_ , but without the magic that she had seemed to imbue her creations with.

He had had the _dream_ again, where he found Ukyo’s dead body, tanto still in her sliced open stomach, on the floor of her foreclosed restaurant, and it was looking more likely by the day.

At least the decreased patronage meant fewer men hitting on what they thought was a really cute girl.

Konatsu had just put the tub by the sink when he heard the door chimes indicating a late customer, and hurried back to the dining room. “Welcome to Uc —” he started to say in his high alto, then broke off in shock at the sight of the two people standing just inside the front door as the dining room fell silent.

/\

Ukyo finished up an order, put the plate out for Kontsu to deliver, and dully turned to the latest order that her “waitress” had handed over, wondering for just a moment why she was even bothering.

Since that day when everything had fallen apart, when the Freak had ... attacked ... Ranma and spectacularly and, thankfully, painfully died, she had moved through a world of dull, lifeless colors, every motion an effort. First, there had been Nabiki’s words, a seed of doubt in her already cracked certainty that Ranma would choose her over the frigid, abusive bitch he was affianced to. Then, even after he should have recovered he hadn’t come to see her, to let her know he was alright.

She had told herself that he hadn’t known, that he had more serious concerns, that being molested had pushed him into hiding for awhile while he recovered. Then the rumors had started circulating. Of course, as usual they were all over the map — Ranma had killed Happosai and was on the run from the law; the Amazons had taken advantage of the situation to smuggle him back to China where he was recovering by acting the stud for any interested woman; no, Ranma had felt it was impossible to continue as a man and chosen to lock his curse; no, Happosai had locked the curse before he died and now they were trying to figure out how to unlock it.

Still, there was one thing all the rumors had had in common — when Ranma left, Akane went with him.

Ukyo had tried to find out the truth, but the only person left at the Tendo dojo had been the father, and he had been useless. Eventually she had succeeded in tracking down Kasumi at Dr. Tofu’s clinic, but the eldest daughter had refused to talk about Ranma or her sisters.

Then the pre-movie newsreels had come out showing a girl that was obviously Ranma (the ponytail wasn’t fooling anyone), and a whole new raft of rumors started up, mainly centering around just how the Senshi had managed to convince Ranma to wear the costume, anywhere from some form of mind control to dealing with the trauma of what happened to him to Ranma losing his memory or taking another blow to the head (though some argued that Ranma would rather die than wear that costume so it couldn’t really be him).

Ukyo felt the world become that much more dull and heavy at her train of thought and forced her mind back to her cooking. Whatever else had gone wrong in her life, she still had her pride — even if even in her most important Art the life and energy had faded, leaving nothing but duty.

Suddenly something changed, something about the restaurant, and she slowly refocused on the world beyond her grill as she realized what was wrong — the low murmur of conversation that marked a restaurant in operation was not just diminished (as it had been for weeks, something she had been unable to make herself care about), but gone, the only noises in Ucchan’s coming from outside.

Looking up, the young chef froze as she saw the pair standing in the doorway. The young woman in a Sailor Moon costume barely registered, as Ukyo stared at the redheaded busty form of Ranma’s girl side. Then Ukyo was up over the grill, slipping when she hit the floor from the okonomiyaki on the bottom of a foot, and threw herself toward Ranma.

/\

Sailor Moon smiled down at her sister sitting at her feet, Ranma’s lap full of crying, laughing girl, then looked up at the cute waitress approaching the trio. No, wait — this had to be Konatsu, Ukyo’s self-appointed servant, the male kunoichi, and so highly skilled as to make ranking meaningless. Incredible, that anyone so cute could be a guy.

The “waitress” bowed. “Are you truly Sailor Moon?” “she” asked softly, wide-eyed.

“Yup!” Moon replied cheerfully, then looked down again at the pair at her feet. “Come on, Ranma, I think you and Ukyo need to take this somewhere more private.” _Good thing I suggested leaving off the emotion-reading thing going in this time, I hate to think of what would have happened if Ranma had been hit by_ that _at the same time Ukyo piled into her. And little sis wanted to use it as training!_

Ranma nodded and somehow rose to her feet with the larger girl in her arms, Ukyo still clutching her tightly. “Yeah, I’ll take her ta her bedroom. Why don’t ya see ta seein’ off the customers? I don’t think Ukyo’s gonna be cookin’ any time soon.”

“You leave the cooking to me,” Sailor Pluto said from behind them, and they turned to find the emerald-haired Senshi of Time standing in the doorway to the street.

“Pluto, you can cook okonomiyaki?” Moon asked, stunned.

Pluto shrugged. “Not at a professional level, but I suspect it’ll be good enough,” she said with a smile, looking around at all the staring customers. “So Ranma, take Ukyo and have that little talk while Moon and I help Konatsu see to the customers.”

Ranma nodded. “You got it,” she said, and started for the door to the back with a beaming Ukyo still in her arms while Pluto headed for the grill.

“But I don’t know how to be a waitress!” Moon protested.

“It’s not that hard,” Pluto said nonchalantly as she scraped off the overcooked okonomiyakis currently on the grill. “You get the customer’s name, ask what he wants, write it down and give it to me, then when I’m done take it to the customer and give him the bill. Konatsu can give you some pointers. Oh, yes — don’t stop smiling.” Konatsu nodded eagerly. When Moon seemed distinctly unreassured, Pluto added, “Don’t worry, just be yourself. I suspect who you are will make up for any lack of professionalism.”

Moon looked around at the staring customers and took a deep breath. “Right! Can’t be worse than facing Beryl.” Pasting on a smile she turned to Konatsu. “So, got an extra notepad?”

Konatsu nodded with a smile, then the two turned to stare as customers began rising from stools and chairs to rush toward the pay phone.

/\

“So you’re locked,” Ukyo said from where she sat facing a kneeling Ranma on her bedroom’s futon.

“Yeah, worse than locked — the curse is gone, I’m just ... me,” Ranma replied. “And like I said, there’s no way ta change that. I have a new protection, magic can’t touch me now.”

Ukyo jerked to her feet and turned her back on the girl to stare out her bedroom window for a long moment, then turned back around. “And Akane’s fine with this?” she asked quietly. “I didn’t think she swung that way.”

“I ... I don’t think she does, not really,” Ranma replied hesitantly, eyes dropping. Taking a deep breath she forced her eyes back up to Ukyo’s. “She says I’m enough, and I’m not gonna argue with her.”

Ukyo stared at the redhead, eyes wide. _Akane’s_ not _a lesbian? And she’s still —_ “Ranma ... are you and Akane ... lovers?” Ukyo forced herself to ask, then turned back to the window, hugging herself, when Ranma silently nodded. _I’ve lost. If Ranma and Akane are sleeping together, as honorable as Ranma is ... and even if they weren’t, with Ranma like he ... she ... is, could you do what Akane’s done? Take Ranma as he is, however ... she ... is?_ The former cute fiancée examined her heart, her feelings, how she had always reacted to Ranma’s girl side, and came to the reluctant conclusion that, no, she couldn’t. It was over.

Still gazing out the window, she asked, “Why didn’t you stop by on your way out of Nerima? At least let me know what had happened? Why didn’t you at least _call_?”

“Ukyo, I ...” Ranma broke off for a few minutes, then in a voice that shook with anger, continued, “Ukyo, ya blew up my wedding! I mean, sure, I didn’t really want ta get married then — all sorta irony in that. Sure, I didn’t even know about it and I might have wanted ya ta toss around bombs as a way ta break it up, but it should have been _my_ call, ya didn’t even ask! Sure, I was used ta the fathers actin’ like that, like what I wanted didn’t matter, like I was just a tool for whatever they wanted. Sure, I wasn’t surprised when Shampoo did the same thing. But you — I expected better of you, thought you were my friend. And if that wasn’t good enough for ya, if you were gonna treat me like somethin’ ya owned instead of a person ya respected, then there wasn’t any point in tryin’ longer.”

Ukyo whirled. “Ranma, I didn’t ... !” _You did._ “I didn’t mean to ... !” _You did. It didn’t even occur to you to ask, did it? Why? Were you secretly afraid that you wouldn’t like the answer? Ranma’s right, what_ you _wanted was everything, what_ he _wanted was less than nothing._ Ukyo swayed as the blood drained from her face, the world going gray, and even as she started to fall Ranma was there, catching her, keeping her on her feet. Again, she found herself clutching at the redhead, tears pouring down her cheeks, but this time there was no laughter. “Ranma, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” she found herself repeating over and over between sobs as Ranma gently held her.

Eventually, the tears eased off as she fought for control. She fell silent and simply stood for a time, arms around the redhead in a mutual embrace. Finally she broke the embrace and stepped back away from Ranma and wiped at her face, then sighed and looked at her former fiancé, or so she’d thought. “Ranma, I really am sorry. I know I don’t deserve it after the way I treated you, but ... can we be friends? Just friends?”

Ranma gave her a long, searching look, then her smile lit up the room. “Sure, I’d like that!” she said happily.

Ukyo sagged with relief, then plopped back down onto her futon and pointed at a spot a few feet away. “If you’re going to be a girl, you have to learn to gossip properly! So sit, and tell me everything you and Akane have been up to in the months since you left.”

Ranma laughed even as she winced, but sat down at the ordered spot. “It isn’t gossip, it’s just ... catchin’ up.”

“And what do you think gossip is?” Ukyo asked with a grin. “Girls are just better at it than guys, that’s all. So spill!”

“Alright, alright! Well, I guess it really started when the Freak ... well, you know ... and it turned out I’m not exactly who I thought I was — no, that’s not right, better said not _just_ who I thought I was ...”

/\

“ ... so I came up with a ki-shield on the fly, and instead a’ knockin’ me into next week, she just knocked me out the window. She was really sorry about it after, too. Now I’ll have to train her in how ta do that, along with the sword. It’ll be fun.”

Ranma’s last statement was slightly shaky, but Ukyo’s head was whirling too hard to notice. Ranma the reincarnated sister of Sailor Moon? An ancient kingdom — excuse me, queendom — ruling a good-sized chunk of interstellar space? Ranma the reluctant Princess of the Amazons? Ranma trying to make Akane angry and Akane trying to control her temper?

Ukyo shook herself out of her stunned bemusement with a laugh. “Only you, Ranma, only you,” she murmured even as she felt another piece of her dream belatedly die. Ranma had come alive as she’d spoken of her training, her battles; and then there was the zaniness of her life — and where did that fit in with Ukyo’s dream of a restaurant chain showcasing her recipes and talents? Where had it ever fit? And why hadn’t she really _listened_ earlier?

With a sigh, the chef straightened and frowned at the redhead. “When the final showdown happens I’m going to be there, right? If Akane’s going to be in the middle of it you aren’t going to go all macho-protective on _me_!”

“Uh, yeah, sure, glad ta have ya,” Ranma quickly agreed, blushing. “Actually, that’s why I came by — we’re gonna need all the top martial artists we can get.” Sobering, the redhead straightened with a sigh. “It gonna be worse than practically any other fight I’ve been in, but it’s for everything — the whole world. We hafta win it.”

“Well, I’m glad _something_ finally forced you to come around,” Ukyo said, then glanced at the clock hanging on the wall and shot to her feet. “It’s been over an hour! What’s going on downstairs? Please tell me you didn’t leave _Konatsu_ to try to cook again!”

“No, that would be Puu,” Ranma said, rising to her feet. “She said she isn’t professional but probably good enough. She couldn’t be worse than Konatsu so ya oughta have _some_ lunch business, but we probably oughta see how things are goin’.”

The two headed for the dining room, only to freeze in the doorway. The room was packed, with a line of waiting customers — men, women and children — going out the door. A serene Konatsu breezed about the room cleaning tables and seating new customers while a frazzled but beaming Sailor Moon rushed from customer to customer and Sailor Pluto worked on four okonomiyakis at once.

Ranma ducked back out of sight, and Ukyo turned to find a human whirlwind in the corridor. Within seconds the spinning flashes of skin and cloth came to a stop to reveal the Vanguard she’d seen in the news reels. “Looks like big sis and Puu could use a hand,” Vanguard said with a grin as she finished tying up her ponytail. “So let’s go give ‘em a show!”

“After you,” Ukyo responded, straightfaced as she bowed and motioned toward the doorway, then followed her once and future friend out into the busy restaurant.


	22. The NWC Ride: Were & Are Aren't Synonyms

Nabiki looked up at the sound of a key in the lock of the apartment she shared with Akane and Ranma, and sighed with relief as her sister’s lover and her kinda-sorta older sister came through the door. Nabiki smiled at the new arrivals as she set her abacus and pencil down on the kitchen table beside her typewriter. “You’re late,” she said nonchalantly, “what happened?”

“Nothin’ bad,” Ranma assured her, “we just had an unexpected delay at Uc-chan’s.” She headed over to the refrigerator to get some cold water for Usagi and herself, then the two sat down at the table. “While I was talkin’ things out with Uc-chan, Moon and Pluto stepped in ta help Konatsu handle the restaurant. By the time Uc-chan and me got done, there was a line out the door of people waitin’ ta be served by Sailor Senshi, an’ Moon didn’t have the heart ta disappoint any of them. So Vanguard, Pluto an’ Moon stuck around for a few hours more.”

Nabiki nodded, careful to hide her relief even as she suppressed the snarky comment that had leaped to mind. She’d recognized how much of a beating Ranma’s self-image had taken because of The Day — had fought to suppress her normal biting sense of humor because of it — and while she hadn’t been all that concerned about Ranma’s meetings with the fathers (Ranma had no more illusions about them than Nabiki did), Ukyo had been another matter. Ranma had counted the chef as one of his few friends, the break had hurt, their reunion could have been devastating to the redhead’s recovery, and Nabiki felt herself relax as the realization that it had been a smashing success instead sank in.

_Damn, no cutting comment,_ Ranma thought with irritated disappointment. At first she had been too shaken to notice how ... gentle ... Nabiki was being. Then, when she’d recovered enough to realize she hadn’t had a shot to the ego from the Ice Queen in weeks, she was grateful. Now, she was beginning to deliberately leave herself open for one. _Guess she still thinks I’m damaged goods._ “So where’s Akane?” she asked as she put down her empty glass. “When me an’ big sis got back too late ta meet her when school got out, I thought she’d be here.”

“When she didn’t find you here after school, Usa-chan and ‘Taru-chan decided to help her drown her worries in sugar as soon as they finished practicing their katas; they’re down at the Ice Cream Emporium,” Nabiki said with a shrug. “So why don’t the two of you tell me all about it, then join them while I finish this up” — waving at the papers and textbooks scattered across the table — “and make my own run to Nerima?”

Ranma and Usagi exchanged glances. “I know it’s a bad idea for Ranma to go with you, but would you like some company?” Usagi hesitantly asked. The blonde former queen-to-be had found it hard to warm to the middle Tendo, in spite of the way she normally tried to see the best in everyone and the fact that Nabiki was Akane’s sister. The memories of the part Nabiki had played in the file Pluto had passed out on The Day had gotten in the way, even when she had been reluctantly impressed by Pluto’s reports on Nabiki’s changed behavior. Still, that didn’t mean she wanted anything serious to happen to the younger girl, and the pageboy-haired Tendo _was_ trying to help... _And on the train trip back out to Nerima I won’t have to shield her from the gropers like I did Yasuko on the trip back,_ Usagi thought with an internal smirk.

But Nabiki instantly shook her head, suppressing a wince at the thought of the likely results of a brawl between Kodachi and Sailor Moon. “No,” she said firmly, “I’ll be fine — Kodachi never considered me to be a threat and that’s not likely to have changed.”

“If you’re sure ...” At Nabiki’s firm agreement, Usagi put down her own glass. “In that case, if I could use your telephone to check in again with Mamoru I’ll leave Ranma to tell you what happened and visit Minako, tell her how happy I am she’s all right. Tell Akane I’m sorry I missed her,” she added, turning to her sister, “but the hubby’s waiting.”

“Sure, she’ll understand,” Ranma agreed, then mimed ducking with a chuckle as Nabiki imperiously pointed a finger at her.

“Okay, Saotome, spill! Tell me everything,” Nabiki ordered even as the corners of her lips twitched at Ranma’s antics.

“Yes, ma’am!” Ranma intoned, saluting smartly. “Well, we — I — decided to start with Tofu’s clinic and you won’t _believe_ what he an’ Kasumi have been up to...”

/oOo\

Nabiki took a deep breath to steady her nerves as she gazed at the front gate to the Kuno estate. She had meant everything she’d said and thought back at her apartment, both about not being in any real danger and the effects of a meeting between Ranma’s new sister and Tatewaki’s old one. (She smirked for a moment at the thought — repressing her normal instincts at home wasn’t easy and she enjoyed being able to relax.) But now that she was at the entrance to the lion’s den, she found her certitude weakening more than a little — she was finding that the difference between holding to a theory and actually acting on it was greater than she’d thought.

Taking another deep breath, she walked forward toward gatehouse and the guard that had been eyeing her for the past five minutes while she built up her courage. “Can I help you, Tendo-san?” the guard asked politely.

Nabiki fought to keep an eyebrow from rising in surprise. _Kuno security knows_ me _by sight? Ranma and Akane I can understand, but me ... that goes beyond caution into paranoia!_ “Yes, I’m here to see Kuno Tatewaki. Would you please let Kuno-san know I’m here?”

“Of course. Is he expecting you?”

“No,” Nabiki replied, then paused. Actually, that’s not quite true. While he isn’t expecting me right now, I imagine he’s been praying to all the kami for this visit for months.”

“Ah ... so Ranma has sent you to request his help, has she? You’re right, he’s been training like a madman —” The guard grimaced but continued, “He will more than happy to join Vanguard and the Senshi in battle.” Now Nabiki’s eyebrow did climb into her hairline, and the guard chuckled. “We are normal people here, whoever our employers may be,” he said. “And we _do_ attend the movies even if the masters and mistress don’t — except for that Elvis Presley movie and the Hawaii 5-0 American TV series,” he added with a shudder. “Give me a moment to call my relief and I’ll escort you in past the booby traps.”

/\

“Of course I will answer my Princess’s call to arms!” Tatewaki forcibly intoned from where he sat in the luxuriously appointed sitting room. “But must I truly wait for a month before coming to the aid of Her Majesty and her handmaiden? Surely there must be something I can do to aid them now in this time of need!”

Nabiki firmly shook her head from where she sat across the small coffee table. “Your eagerness to help is appreciated but no surprise in a soul so noble,” she replied, then suppressed a wince. _Now he’s got_ you _talking like that! Better get out of here fast._ “But neither the Princess nor her handmaiden will be going into battle until you join them at the final showdown — we seek to lure the enemy into a false sense of security by convincing them that their opposition is being weakened and decreased by their probes. Instead, Princess Yasuko and my sister will be training in new techniques to unleash against the foe.”

“Then surely I can help them in their training?” Tatewaki asked eagerly, leaning forward in his seat. “While Her Majesty is truly incomparable in the unarmed arts I have not observed that she has much interest in weapons. Surely my own skills —”

“Don’t match the training she needs,” Nabiki broke in to say. “My apologies for my brusqueness in the face of such devotion, but the training she seeks involves sword and shield. She is receiving that training from an American who has devoted his life to preserving the old fighting arts of Europe.”

“What _American_ can match my noble skill?” the obsessed Kuno demanded, stiffening.

“I’m sure he can’t. But in this case it isn’t the level of skill but rather what weapons those skills encompass,” Nabiki said soothingly, trying not to sweat.

“OH HO HO HO HO!”

_Thank you, kami!_ Nabiki thought as she brushed the shower of black rose petals from off her shoulders, even as she fought back a self-deprecating laugh at her gratitude for the appearance of the cackling lunatic.

“So, the sister of she who helped betray and murder my beloved Ranma-sama and dared to hint that the red-haired trollop is of the most noble lineage when she is clearly nothing but a murderous tramp has dared return to the scene of her heinous crimes!”

Nabiki had twisted to look at the Kuno sister during her rant and was shocked at the sight. Kodachi did not look good — not _dirty_ , but ... not healthy. Her hair no longer shone, her face was slightly splotchy, her clothes slightly messy. And there was a glitter in her eye that sent a shiver of fear down Nabiki’s spine. Before, Kodachi had been crazy but mostly harmless — now she was dangerous. Nabiki found herself weighing getting out of the mansion as fast as humanly possible against calling the Cat Café and waiting for an escort home while staying as close to Tatewaki as she could.

Suddenly a new voice broke into the scene: “Has the Princess’s instructions been delivered, My Lady? Her Highness and your sister are getting anxious.”

Nabiki and the Kunos whirled to find Sailor Pluto standing in a corner of the room in all her regal, skimpy, beautiful glory, hokey staff and all, and Nabiki fought to keep from melting into a puddle of sheer relief. “Yes, I’m done here,” she said calmly even as she tried to stop the tremor in her hands.

Standing, she turned toward the elder sibling. “Tatewaki-san, my thanks for your —” She broke off her farewell as out of the corner of her eye she caught a purple glow suddenly surrounding the large garnet at the tip of Pluto’s staff. Then Pluto was leveling the staff and the purple ball of light flew past Nabiki and she whirled to see it smash Kodachi into the wall. Even as the ponytailed girl slid down the wall into an unconscious heap, her outflung ribbon settled across Nabiki’s shoulder.

As Nabiki simply stared, stunned into a frozen statue, Pluto stepped forward and bowed slightly to Tatewaki, on his feet and holding his bokken. “My apologies for the violence within your home, warrior. Do not think we hold your sister’s shameful behavior against you. But as you can see, it is perhaps not safe for Nabiki to remain in the same house as your sister. I think it best if we take our leave.”

Tatewaki bowed deeply to the emerald-haired woman. “It shames me to have to agree with you, but perhaps you are right. Kodachi has already shamed the Kuno family almost beyond repair, it would be best not to give her the opportunity to increase our disgrace. Let me escort you to the gate. Unless you and Nabiki wish to leave the way you came?”

“The gate will be fine,” Pluto responded regally, then laid a hand on Nabiki’s shoulder and gave her a gentle shake.

Looking away from the unconscious girl, Nabiki quickly reran the immediate conversation and vigorously nodded her agreement. “Y-Yes, l-leaving is g-g-good,” she stammered, then blushed in embarrassment.

/oOo\

In an alley barely out of sight of the Kuno estate, Nabiki crouched dry-heaving on hands and knees, the former contents of her stomach pooling on the concrete below her head. Finally bringing herself under control, she sat back on her heels and shook. In the more than two years she had known Ranma, she had never come so close to dying. “She ... she almost ... if you hadn’t been there ...” she managed to get out.

“Then you would have been dead, Kodachi as well within moments at her brother’s hand, and Ranma would have never forgiven herself for letting you come here alone,” Pluto said from where she leaned against the alley wall. Straightening, she offered Nabiki a bottled water. “Akane would have actually been able to forgive her, but it would create a strain between the two that we definitely don’t need right now, not to mention the impact it would have on Soun. And as well, when the final attack goes down Tatewaki would be in jail.

“You can count yourself _very_ lucky that all that’s the case,” the Senshi of Time continued. “If it wasn’t, I might well have been forced to let you walk into that insane asylum and die, for the future’s sake.”

Nabiki’s eyes shot to the young/ancient woman’s face, her accusation dying at the pain in Pluto’s eyes. After a moment’s pause she finished opening the plastic bottle and cleaned out her mouth, then drank. Finishing off the water, she said thoughtfully, “You’re playing for serious stakes, aren’t you? I wouldn’t have your powers for all of the yen in the world. Come on, let’s get out of here, I have a sudden urge for Ranma’s company.”

Pluto nodded, and in a flash reverted to her regular weekday business suit. “That sounds like a _very_ good idea,” she replied.

As the two left the alley, Nabiki glanced slyly at her companion. “And don’t worry, I won’t mention what you said to Ranma and Akane, or anyone else for that matter — about letting me die, that is. I won’t even charge you for my silence.” She grinned at the hints of relief she caught in the older woman’s stately posture.

Pluto looked over at the middle Tendo, trying for a repressive glare, but Nabiki’s grin refused to fade. After a moment, Pluto’s glare faded. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“Think nothing of it.”


	23. The Long Haul

Ranma and Akane stepped out of the train into the hot, muggy day with the light drizzle that seemed to have followed them from Tokyo, followed by Mu Tse and Bai Ting. Ranma glanced over at Akane beside her as they looked around at the small town at the foot of the mountains and hid a sigh. The private car Ku Lon had insisted they hire for the train trip up from Tokyo had been luxurious, it would have been the best train ride in Ranma’s life if Akane hadn’t still been giving her the cold shoulder all the way up — as she had over the past several days as they (or rather, the Amazons) had made arrangements for the trip.

With only a slight effort, Ranma sought out the now-familiar calm at her center, and gasped at the wave of hurt and angry feelings of betrayal radiating from her lover. Hastily, she dropped out of her calm, cutting off the painful emotions. _Ya sure blew it this time, Ranma,_ she thought to herself. _You’re lucky Akane hasn’t hammered ya again. If she didn’t maybe think it might be another test, she probably would’ve. And you’d deserve it_ _— again._

The last few days since her return from Nerima hadn’t been exactly fun, what with arranging this trip with Ku Lon, letting those important to her know that she was going to be away from Tokyo for awhile, getting her mother moved to the Outers’ home — okay, that had been fun, and it was just too bad that she couldn’t have seen Genma’s face when he got back from his latest drinking binge to find the house almost empty and Nodoka gone — but the least fun had been the knockdown, drag-out fight with Akane over whether her lover would leave school only weeks before her last school year ended to join her on the trip. If only she hadn’t overplayed her hand, but Akane’s control over her center was improving so rapidly —

“Princess Yasuko?”

The redhead turned, her tight frown threatening to turn into a snarl, and stepped back in barely repressed panic — whoever the man dressed as a typical laborer standing a few feet away might have been, he was no Amazon. Fortunately for him, given Ranma’s current mood, he also wasn’t genuflecting as some of those Amazons had given the chance. But if he wasn’t an Amazon ... “Yeah,” the pigtailed girl said sharply, trying to slow down her racing heart. “An’ who are you?”

“Kimura Keiji, at you service, Your Highness,” he replied smoothly, bowing. “I am one of the Imperial Household assigned to aid your people in getting settled in to their new homes. I’m here to take you the rest of the way there.”

“Ah, right, Cologne said we’d be met but didn’t say by who. So, Kimura-san, where’s the ride?”

“This way, please, Your Highness, My Lady,” the apparent laborer replied to the two former Nerimans (Akane’s eyebrows rising at the title she’d been granted), and led the four out of the train station toward a nearby parking lot. As they approached a battered van, he added, “We’d have had transportation more in keeping with your status but the required secrecy —” He broke off in surprise as Ranma began to growl.

Beside her, Akane sighed and laid a warning hand on her lover’s arm as something inside her seemed to relax a little. “No, ‘Yasuko’, you can’t beat up the help just because they’re treating you the way your status calls for,” she murmured, and relaxed further at Ranma’s bark of surprised laughter. “Now let’s get this over —” she started to add, but cut off the thought unfinished: _— so we can get to the training._ No point in stirring things up again, however much she ached to rub Ranma’s nose in it — she’d won the argument, after all.

/\

Ku Lon sighed to herself as she watched the body language of the couple exiting the van into the afternoon drizzle (Kimura-san holding an umbrella over the Nerimans and offering another to a grateful Mu Tse) and looking around at the Amazons’ new home. Setsuna had warned her of what to expect, and she’d been right as usual. Ah, well, all couples that were in it for the long haul had to learn how to deal with the occasional disagreement, or even the occasional shouting match (she was unaware of her brief soft smile at the thought of her own husband, centuries dead in a Musk raid). _Still, the timing could have been better — just before a major fight is a bad time for hurt feelings between shield mates. But then, the fight is the_ reason _for the hurt feelings, so I guess there’s no avoiding it. We’ll just have to see to it that they get over it before the showdown._

The ancient matriarch pogoed forward. “Ranma-kun, Akane-kun, welcome home.” She discreetly watched the various reactions to her greeting, and was pleased. Kimura-san was shocked and Bai Ting was scandalized, but Mu Tse just grinned. More importantly, some of the tension that had her Princess taut as a bowstring eased away.

“Hi, Ol’ Ghoul, good ta see ya again,” Ranma replied, grinning, and didn’t even try hard to dodge the rap on the head Ku Lon delivered for her cheek (to Kimura-san’s even greater shock).

“Yes, what are you doing here?” Akane asked in what she probably fondly considered a nonchalant manner. “We just spoke with you yesterday at the Cat Café, and you didn’t say anything about leaving Tokyo.”

“True, child, but the Council decided that, since I am the elder that knows the Princess best, I should be here to oversee her first true stay with her people. Ranma,” she continued, turning to the redhead, “your American trainer will be arriving tomorrow, but I thought this afternoon you should get settled in and tour the village the Emperor has so generously provided us. And tonight ...” Her voice trailed away, then she took a deep breath and straightened on her staff. “Tonight there will be a banquet in your honor, and afterward the Elders of the Council will formally swear the old oaths of fealty.” _Damn, tension’s back, worse than ever._ Worse than ever, Ranma had gone a little pale.

“Fine, whatever,” the redhead managed to get out. “Where’s Shampoo? I’d think she’d be with ya.”

 _Yes, I know you’d like another familiar face around. Unfortunately —_ “As much as I would appreciate my great-granddaughter’s company, I’m afraid that there’s a special assignment only she could be trusted with. Perhaps she’ll be able to hand it off to another warrior in a few weeks and return to her previous assignment.”

“Ya got her guardin’ Nabiki,” Ranma guessed, but the wrinkled crone shook her head.

“No, something more important,” Ku Lon said. Then, when Akane’s fists started clenching up a little hastily added, “After the two of you were already on the train we received word that Kuno Tatewaki has prevailed on his father to have his sister committed, with guards. She is no longer a threat, though for Nabiki’s peace of mind we have a warrior keeping her company for the present — one of our more studious ones, actually, who may have a future as the tribe’s treasurer. Nabiki will be both reassured and able to tell herself that we’re trying to take advantage, that her guard isn’t actually a security blanket.”

That forced a reluctant chuckle from the pair, and Ranma asked, “So if Shampoo’s not guardin’ Nabiki, what _is_ she doin’?”

“Oh, I think I’ll let her tell you about it when she returns,” Ku Lon replied blithely. “Give your bags to Sun Dai” — motioning to a wide-eyed young man standing slightly behind her — “and then we’ll take that tour.”

/\

Ranma and Akane gaped at the last stop on their tour of the new village. It was a single multi-story building, and while easily the largest building in the village that wasn’t saying much — it would have filled the entire grounds of the Tendo dojo, but not much more. But beyond that its white walls and brown peaked roofs would have fit in perfectly on the grounds of the Imperial Palace; so, too, would the lawn around it, and the flower garden, and the full-grown trees on all sides.

“What is this?” Ranma finally asked.

“It’s your and Akane’s new home,” Ku Lon replied calmly.

“What? !” Ranma shouted, and the matriarch sighed.

“The truth is, Ranma, that as overjoyed as the Amazons are to have four thousand years of loyalty rewarded with the return of our princess, we don’t really know what to do with you, how you’ll fit in. We were a regiment when the Moon Queendom fell, we’ve been a tribe for millennia, with a tribal council — we don’t really know what to _do_ with a Princess. So when we started moving in and realized we needed a place for you to live, we asked our helpers from the Imperial Household to take care of it for us. This is the result.

“It isn’t entirely for you,” she added as the redhead’s eyes slowly swept across the grounds to return to the ... palace was the only word that fit. “It also has a banquet hall and the new chambers for the Council to meet, offices I understand we are going to need as we adjust to life in Japan, rooms set aside for you to meet people, and guest suites. But the fourth story is all yours.”

As the two girls continued to stare wordlessly, Ku Lon finally said, “Come on, let’s get inside out of the drizzle and I’ll show you around, and then you can get ready for the banquet.”

/\

“Oh, this is the perfect end to a _wonderful_ day,” Ranma said sarcastically from where she stood in front of her and Akane’s bedroom wardrobe, holding up what she was expected to wear to the banquet and the oath-swearing after.

Akane found herself trying to hold in giggles at her lover’s disgusted expression. “Well, it’s certainly deserving of a princess,” she finally managed to get out, then _did_ start giggling as Ranma turned a betrayed expression on her.

While everything else they’d seen so far in the miniature palace was pure Japanese, the sleeveless cheongsam Ranma was unhappily examining was purely Chinese, and certainly expensive enough for a princess. But though it was made from the finest silk, and the deep blue coloring with the silver lining and needleworked moon crystal in the center of the chest were certainly masterpieces, Akane rather doubted any princess, Chinese or Japanese, would have worn it to anything remotely like an official function — the Amazons must have gotten Ranma’s measurements somehow, because even hanging limply from her lover’s hands it was obvious that the cheongsam had been tailored tight enough to look painted on. The hem ending at mid-thigh and the high slits up both sides to give full freedom of movement didn’t help, either.

“How’m I supposed ta wear underwear with this?” Ranma groused, turning her attention back to the dress.

“You aren’t,” Ku Lon said from her perch on the chair by a sturdy wooden desk. “Be careful to keep your legs closed when you sit.”

At that Ranma blushed red to match her hair, and Akane found herself on her knees clutching her sides against peals of laughter. Her lover glared at her for a moment, then her expression softened to a gentle smile. She hesitated, then murmured, “You’re sure feelin’ a lot better.”

Akane grinned back at her as she fought her laughter under control. “Yes, I am, aren’t I?” she murmured back. During the tour around the riverside village, the raven-haired girl had watched the look on Ranma’s face grow more and more pinched with every bow from those they passed, until she’d finally relented and sought her own center to get a sense of the redhead’s emotional state. She had been stunned at the feelings of resentment, resignation and budding panic her companion had been radiating. And then Ranma had glanced at her, and for a moment she had been overwhelmed by love, guilt and relief. After that, Akane had found her own anger and sense of betrayal impossible to hold on to, and the feeling of relief as her negative feelings faded away had been intense enough to leave her lightheaded and a little giddy.

“Good,” Ranma continued as her smile turned mischievous. “Then you’ll be happy ta know there’s one in here for you, too, all red with gold trim, and a gold rising sun across the front. ‘Course, it’s not as big across the chest, but I suspect it’ll be as tight on you as this one on me.”

“Oooh, now you’re fighting dirty,” Akane mock-growled as she got back up, even as her own blush matched Ranma’s.

“Anything Goes,” her lover riposted. “I’ve never understood why a village a’ women warriors wore such sexy clothing.”

“It’s because we are warriors that we wear such clothing,” Ku Lon replied from her seat. “For all the glory and legends that we attach to combat, the truth is that it is a brutal, ugly, dehumanizing activity. Dressing as we do helps remind us that we are women as well as warriors.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Ranma mused. “But why me? Why this? An’ if ya were gonna get me all gussied up, why not what Mom an’ big sis wore back then?”

“The Council actually discussed doing just that,” Ku Lon said. “It wouldn’t have been hard to find out what the fashions were. But in the end, we decided to go with what looked right to us rather than historical accuracy.”

She fell silent for a moment, gazing somberly at the two teenagers, then continued, “Ranma, however hard you try to hide it, I know you resent what we’ve done to your future, the added responsibility, the constant company — that you have accepted this only because of the hundreds of warriors we will bring to the battle. But I don’t think you’ve considered it from our side of things — it hasn’t been easy for us, either. We had a comfortable existence, with each day much like the one before, our future laid out before us with three thousand years of tradition to guide our lives. Certainly, we had the Return of the Princess to look forward to and our sworn allegiance to her at the center of our way of life, but it was a ‘maybe someday’ kind of thing, much like the Christians and their Second Coming. Then you came along, it turns out our Princess has truly returned, and suddenly that comfortable way of life is thrown into chaos, even to the point of packing up everything we can carry and leaving what has been our home for literally millennia for a strange country and an unknown future.

“The Council doesn’t really expect you to _act_ like a princess. We don’t really know how a princess acts, at that — somehow our ancient records of proper protocol focused on how _we_ are supposed to act, not you — but however it was, you aren’t it. But could you please at least look the part of a princess on occasion, provide a center in the middle of the chaos we’ve found ourselves in?”

Ranma stared at the matriarch for a long moment, then nodded jerkily, her shoulders slumping. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Akane laid a comforting hand on Ranma’s shoulder. “Why is this so hard?” she asked. “You’ve dressed up before, even more ‘girlie’ than this. Sure, you complained about it, but it didn’t bother you this much.”

“Yeah, well, before it wasn’t really me. It was playacting, or a disguise, or just ta help me win,” the redhead admitted, eyes dropping to the garment still in her hands. “This — this is supposed ta be _me_. And it isn’t, not really. Not yet,” she whispered.

Akane was silent for a long moment, then said, “Well, don’t forget that they aren’t expecting you to _act_ ‘proper’, at least. Good thing, too, considering it’s you. Just don’t take this as an excuse to start up the mealtime food fights again!”

Even as Ranma shook her head in denial with a shuddering chuckle and Ku Lon laughed, Akane leaned over and whispered in the redhead’s ear, “So what do you say we get this over with, come back here and test out this huge bed by screwing each other senseless, then tomorrow morning we put on our most beat up workout clothes, find that dojo again, and I do my best to beat out what few of your brains are still left after tonight?”

Ranma grinned even as she again blushed beet red. “Sounds good ta me!” Then, dropping her own voice to a whisper, she added, “Just don’t ever start thinkin’ a’ me as Princess Yasuko ... please?”

Akane snorted and her arms circled her lover to pull her back against her chest. “Not a chance, you’ll always be my Baka. You proved it a couple days ago, and I’m sure you’ll prove it again,” she whispered back.

Ku Lon smiled at the half-heard exchange, then hopped down from her perch and pogoed toward the door. “Why don’t I leave you two lovebirds to get some rest before you have to get ready for the banquet?” she tossed over her shoulder. “And I do mean _rest_ ,” she added, turning around at the door. “Save the real entertainment for tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am!” the two blushing teenagers intoned, straightening to attention, and the laughing matriarch let herself out of the royal suite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from the song by Brooks and Dunn. It isn't a perfect fit, but close enough — better in the case of Ranma and Akane, but even Princess Yasuko and the Amazons. In the latter case, they find themselves in an arranged marriage that neither side is all that happy with but see no choice but to accept.


	24. The New Sensei

Sergeant Douglas MacKenzie, US Marine Corp, currently on leave, smiled as he strode up the poorly maintained road toward the mountain village of Nikko. The morning had been clear and cool, the previous day’s rain had moved on, and the tall, bulky, blond man (at least some of his ancestors had come through Scotland by way of Scandinavia) was thoroughly enjoying his stroll.

He’d been a little surprised when Setsuna had called, and even moreso when she told him why. The captain had been a more than a little surprised when he’d asked to use some of his accumulated leave time, and less than happy to have one of his best men off-base when things were heating up between the United States and Europe. But he’d had to admit that so long as MacKenzie kept in touch he should have plenty of time to get back to base if they were called back to the States, and he was so shocked that MacKenzie had requested any time at all rather than getting shoved out the door, that he’d reluctantly allowed it.

The night train to Nikko had dropped MacKenzie off at the foot of the mountain just before dawn. He’d let Setsuna know what he’d need for the training and she’d promised it would be waiting for him, and since he just had a backpack for personal items for the trip out, the marine had decided to hike the rest of the way rather than call for a car as instructed.

Just as he came around a bend in the road, two men stepped out of a van at the side of the road, spreading out slightly, and MacKenzie’s attention abruptly sharpened. These men knew how to move — that, and you didn’t find too many men dressed in business suits up in these mountains. “My apologies,” the one nearest to him said in slightly accented English. “I am afraid that the road is closed beyond this point. I know this is some distance from the town, may we offer you a ride back down the mountain?”

“Closed?” MacKenzie repeated in fluent Japanese, acting puzzled. “Isn’t Nikko up this road? I’m supposed to meet an old friend there.”

The two strangers exchanged glances, the face of one tightening slightly. _Great_ , MacKenzie thought, _another one that’s offended when foreigners learn his language_. “What is the name of this ‘old friend’?” the offended man asked, still in English.

“Meioh Setsuna,” Mackenzie replied.

The men froze, then the first bowed deeply. “I am Tsukahara Yuuta,” he said, in Japanese this time. “May I get your name?”

“Oh, of course, my apologies, it’s Sergeant MacKenzie ... MacKenzie Douglas.”

“Thank you.” Tsukahara turned and stepped into the van as his partner and MacKenzie waited. A few minutes later he stepped back out, smiling. “There will be a car here to take you the rest of the way shortly,” he said. “Lan-Lan had some choice words to say about someone that deviates from the plan without letting anyone know. Apparently, they’ve been wondering where you are.”

“I’m sorry, I thought the offer of a ride from the train station was for my convenience, not because of security concerns,” MacKenzie replied, lifting an eyebrow.

But Tsukahara refused to be drawn out. “They will explain everything up at the village,” he simply replied. “Your Japanese is very good, for an American soldier.”

MacKenzie accepted the change of subject, and spent the time waiting for his ride telling the two guards of his how his grandfather had been among the first American soldiers to enter Japan after the end of World War II and had fallen in love with the country and its people, and passed that love on to his descendants.

/\

MacKenzie stepped out of the van and bowed deeply to the emerald-haired woman dressed in a business suit and barely modest skirt waiting for him, then slung his backpack over his shoulder. “Setsuna, it’s good to see you again,” he said with a smile.

“Yes, it’s been a few years,” Setsuna replied with a gracious welcoming smile, then her smile turned impish for a brief flicker and she added in English, “Since I helped you celebrate the night before you left for boot camp, I believe.”

MacKenzie stared for a moment, then said, also in English, “Yes, I remember it well — it was very ... educational, and certainly beat what my father and brothers had planned. The next day was still a haze of fatigue, but at least I wasn’t hung over. Any chance of a sequel?”

Setsuna started to shake her head, then paused. “Perhaps, we’ll see,” she said thoughtfully, then switched back to Japanese. “For now, though, I have something I need to get back to in Tokyo, so let me show you to your room, then introduce you to your new students.”

MacKenzie fell in beside her, and the two walked along the street’s broken pavement, the sergeant looking around at the buildings and people as he walked. He quickly found himself frowning slightly. “Setsuna, what’s going on?” he asked quietly.

“What makes you think something’s going on?” she responded just as quietly.

“You mean, besides the fact that you pulled me away from base when we were the next thing to locked down in order to train a couple of teenagers in European-style sword and shield work?”

“Yes, besides that,” she agreed, the impish smile again flickering across her face.

“There’s hardly a Japanese in sight, they’re all Chinese,” he said. “What’s a village full of Chinese, and backwoods Chinese at that from the way they’re dressed, doing in up-country Japan?”

“Good eye,” Setsuna congratulated him. “One of the village matriarchs, Ku Lon, will explain. Oh, one word of warning — _don’t_ spar with any woman other than the two I’m going to introduce you to until you’ve been told _by a matriarch_ that the Kiss of Marriage doesn’t apply. In fact, ask Ku Lon about it first thing when you see her. If you don’t, you’re apt to find yourself leaving Nikko with an Amazon bride.”

MacKenzie slammed to a stop. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked incredulously.

“Not even a little,” Setsuna assured him.

In spite of the fact that the smile was back he decided to take her absolutely seriously. “I’ll remember that,” he said weakly.

“Good, now come on, there are a couple of teenagers eagerly waiting for you.”

/\

MacKenzie stared, the faint sense of unreality he’d felt since first seeing the mini-palace growing, as he watched the two teenagers bound around the dojo. He was so shocked by what he was watching that he was barely aware of the two teens flanking the door that were obviously bodyguards. He’d realized within seconds that the redhead was clearly better than her raven-haired opponent and was guiding the action, shifting the rhythm of the combat to bring out different blocks and attacks, along with a running mocking commentary. But there wasn’t a person he knew, in the military or out, that would have been able to touch either of them on a dojo floor.

“ _These_ are the two I’m going to be training?” he murmured to Setsuna, standing in the dojo entrance beside him.

The old friend of his family nodded. “Yes,” she agreed, “special circumstances. As good as they are, do you think your team could take either in the field?”

“Break!” the redhead called out, and the two girls came to a stop and bowed to each other, then the redhead turned to the two adults. “Yeah, could ya?” she asked.

MacKenzie shrugged, impressed that the girl had noticed he and Setsuna were there at all, much less heard their exchange, while sparring as energetically as she had been — excellent situational awareness. “Depends on what kind of field experience you have,” he said. “Have either of you had much experience with hunting down someone or having someone trying to hunt you down?” When the two teens shook their heads, he continued, “Then yes, my team could probably take you down. Sure, once either of you knew we were there you’d take us apart, if you’re close enough, but all the combat skill in the world won’t help if you don’t see the first blow coming.”

The raven-haired girl started to bristle, only to settle when her companion touched her arm and spoke up. “Yeah, kinda like why the best swordsman in the world has ta fear the worst, not the second best — it’s the blow ya don’t see comin’ that gets ya,” the redhead agreed, then stuck out a hand. “I’m Ra —” She broke off, rolling her eyes, when Setsuna cleared her throat. “Okay, I’m Yasuko — Princess Yasuko ta everyone else around here but the Tomboy, otherwise known as Akane,” she added, grinning at the other girl.

“And this is MacKenzie Douglas, the sergeant in the US Marine Corp I told you about,” Setsuna said, smoothly inserting herself into the conversation. “Feel free to tell him everything about the situation facing us, he’ll need to know in order to give the best advice he can.”

Yasuko nodded, but Akane shot the older woman a concerned look. “Are you sure, Pu —” She broke off, blushing. “Sorry, I meant Setsuna,” she added.

“Don’t worry about it,” Setsuna reassured her. “In fact, feel free to call me Puu. Considering how much you’re around Yasuko, it’s probably inevitable.” Smiling at Akane’s happy thanks, the emerald-haired woman continued, “And yes, I’m sure. Doug-kun isn’t just the best trainer available in sword and shield, he’s an amateur scholar in the ancient military arts. You’ll find his advice invaluable when it comes to refining our plans for the final fight.”

The sound of people coming down the hallway behind them interrupted the conversation, and the two adults turned to see who was coming. MacKenzie’s eyes widened at the sight of the tiny ancient wrinkled old crone bouncing toward them on a staff, followed by several much younger men carrying the training gear he had requested. His faint sense of unreality suddenly intensified, until he felt slightly lightheaded.

“Ah, Ku Lon’s here,” Setsuna said brightly. “Good, I’ll introduce you to her then be on my way, that business I mentioned in Tokyo. Don’t forget to ask her about the Kiss of Marriage,” she added, glancing slyly at the suddenly blushing redhead. “Yasuko, here, can tell you how much trouble not knowing about them can get you into.”

That feeling of being disconnected from reality didn’t fade during the introduction and only grew stronger after Setsuna left and a _very_ ancient woman and a teenager that turned out, in a way, to be even older explained the situation and what was at stake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, like Ozzallos and others have suggested, this version of Setsuna hasn't exactly been celibate over the millennia, though she avoids romantic entanglements like the plague. Leaving aside the impact it could have on her objectivity, it would have to seriously hurt to watch one lover after another die, from old age if nothing else. But that wouldn't prevent the occasional one night stand.


	25. Boot Camp

Xian Pu, Champion of the Chinese Amazons, reflected that there were times that her high status was less than a blessing. Like now.

The purple-haired teenager’s lip curled in derision as she glared down at the heavyset man sleeping on the barroom floor in a pool of his own vomit. {Disgusting,} she sneered in her native Chinese dialect. {And to think that he used to be one of the finest martial artists of his generation.} Sighing, she motioned to the four men that she had brought with her. {Well, let’s get him out of here and back to the house,} she said with a sigh.

As the men stepped forward to lift Genma by his arms and legs, she turned to the bar owner beside her. From the sweat beading his forehead, she was pleased to see that he knew of her from her time living in Nerima. “You have no problems with us seeing the Panda home?” she inquired, and carefully didn’t let her amusement show when he stiffened at her flawless Japanese. He glanced from her to her fellow warrior, leaning against the bar apparently absorbed in running her whetstone over her large knife, then looked back at Xian Pu and frantically shook his head. “Good, thank you for opening early so we could retrieve him,” she said calmly. “May the gods smile on your business.” Bowing, she motioned to Jen Ni to precede her out of the bar.

/\

Genma slowly came awake with a groan. He had certainly been enjoying the stash of yen that Nodoka had accidentally left behind when she abandoned him, but the mornings were no fun at all. Still, there was an easy cure for what ailed him.

Opening bloodshot eyes as he sat up, he stiffened in shock at finding himself lying on his futon in his bedroom. Glancing around, he suppressed a snarl at finding five Chinese Amazons in the room with him. He rose unsteadily to his feet, careful to avoid the empty sake bottles scattered over the floor.

“So you’re finally awake.”

Genma turned to find another Amazon had entered the room as he had been rising — one of the people he hated more than any other, the purple-haired bitch that had played him, his son, and the Tendos for fools and helped her even greater bitch of a great-grandmother take his son away from him. “What are _you_ doing here?” her snarled as he fell into his Art’s basic stance.

“I’m here to see to it that you live up to the deal you made with Ranma,” Shampoo replied calmly.

“What, is the battle coming already?” Genma asked in shock.

“No, it isn’t for at least a month, yet,” Shampoo said. She tossed several plastic bags to the four men and pointed to the bottles on the floor. As they started gathering them up, she turned back to the middle-aged martial artist. “But you won’t be able to earn your lifelong lush fund if you keep getting drunk every night and don’t start practicing again. So Jen Ni, here” — nodding to the warrior young woman leaning against the wall, who quirked an eyebrow — “will be your keeper and sparring partner and Jwo Nan” — nodding to one of the men cleaning the room — “will stay to look after the house. You will be allowed to indulge your thirst one night a week until the fight.”

Genma looked Jen Ni over, and his eyes lit up with glee. _This could be fun,_ he thought eagerly. Suddenly he became aware of Shampoo stepping toward him, and quickly refocused on the primary threat in the room.

“Listen, Panda,” the teenager murmured quietly, “Jen Ni is good, but we both know she’s not in your league. Don’t forget she’s here for _sparring_. If when the battle comes she isn’t able to participate, for any reason at all, you won’t get to enjoy your stipend for long because we Amazons _will_ hunt you down and kill you — _all_ of us, not just me. Clear?”

Genma stared into the ice-cold eyes of a predator, and remembered the weeks he and his son had been hunted through China by a purple-haired teenaged lunatic. He nodded jerkily, unable to speak with a mouth gone dry.

Shampoo smiled viciously. “Good, I’m glad we understand each other,” she said quietly. Stepping back, she looked over at the men picking up the last of the bottles. {Ma Ma, San Tou, Bin Da, you remember how to get to Ono syan-sheng’s office?} Three of the men exchanged glances then nodded. {Good. Once this panda-sty is cleaned up head there, I’ll meet you.} With one more cold glance at the Panda, she stalked from the room.

/\

Xian Pu leaped to the roof of the home across the street from the Saotome residence to find Ping Ping waiting for her. {That takes care of that,} she said with a sigh of relief, sitting beside the other young woman. {Shu Te and the rest of the men?}

{Waiting in the park on the way to the Tendo dojo,} Ping Ping answered. {I was expecting Jen Ni.}

{Change of plans,} Xian Pu replied. {The Panda hates me too much, I don’t think he could keep from trying to kill me before the fight for all the sake in the world. And he’d probably succeed, much as I hate to say it,} she added with a sigh. {For all that he has all the worst qualities of men, he’s a magnificent fighter. I’m just glad he passed off the fight onto his son that first day in the village — wouldn’t it have been a mess if _he_ had been the one to beat me instead of Ranma?}

Ping Ping shuddered. {Absolutely!} she agreed fervently. {Am I still handling the training for Tendo syan-shen?}

{Yes, and you can keep whichever one of the men left you want, to help Ninomiya syau-zhye with the housework. From what Princess Yasuko said, she’s been trying but hasn’t done so well — probably because she’s spent more time in her child form since she quit teaching. Though the Princess did say that her older sister would be dropping by the dojo from time to time to help out.

{Shu Te will still handle Ono syan-sheng’s training, and his new wife won’t need help with the housework — not Kasumi, she’d be insulted if we offered!} Xian Pu added with a short laugh, then sighed at Ping Ping’s look of distaste. {I know, it shouldn’t be Kasumi doing the housework and loving it, but they’re barbarians, what can you do? And she’s one of the most loving, serene people you’ll ever meet — if there’s anyone destined to be welcomed into the ranks of the million unnamed saints, it’s her. I’m just glad we’ll be able to tell them that — in spite of the training — we’d prefer that her husband stay behind the fighting taking care of the wounded.}

Rising to her feet with a sigh, Xian Pu added, {Let’s get this over with, it’ll take most of the day for me to shepherd the men that won’t be staying back to Nikko.}

{Ah, that’s it, you’re just eager to get back to Mu Tse!} Ping Ping exclaimed as she rose to her feet, then laughed at Xian Pu’s growl. {Relax, I know better — the whole village knows better, after the way you played the bimbo harassed by a love-besotted man for two years. _That_ took serious willpower, considering Mu Tse was playing the opposite role — for him, too, you’d think he’d been born with a woman’s soul. But you’re right about the time constraints, let’s go.}

/oOo\

Sergeant MacKenzie sighed with relief as he glanced up at the windows that ran the length of two of the dojo walls just below the ceiling — though the way Princess Yasuko and Akane had been bouncing around when he’d first met them, he wasn’t sure the windows were high enough.

Still, that was a problem for another day, and a minor one at that compared to the ones that had become obvious to him in the course of the day the lack of light through those windows showed was now over. Just as well, Akane was staggering and even the Princess seemed a little worn around the edges. The pair had the energy of youth and long training, but they had their limits.

“Break!” he called out, and the pair of girls in the middle of the dojo floor separated and bowed to each other, the slightly taller raven-haired girl gasping for breath and the translucent shield seemingly made out of light on her left arm seeming to flicker and waver. That didn’t concern him as much as the fact that the sword made out of the same light was doing the same thing, and he’d decided that it wasn’t enough to hope it was still blunt like the pair had demonstrated they could make them earlier.

“That’s it for the day,” he asserted firmly. Then, when the redheaded Princess looked rebellious, he motioned toward her companion. “Yasuko,” — the girl had insisted he drop the “Princess,” at least while in the dojo — “while I have to admit that you two are as dedicated as any soldiers I’ve ever known, check out Akane. You won’t be able to fight if she loses control of her sword and accidentally cuts off your arm — or your head.”

Yasuko glanced over at Akane, finally looking at her as something other than a threat/target, and gasped at her state. The redhead’s shield and sword vanished and she stepped over to put an arm around the other girl. “Sorry, Tomboy, I didn’t realize we were pushin’ ya so hard.”

Akane’s own shield and sword vanished as she leaned on the shorter girl. “We ... we have to train ... be ready,” she replied breathlessly.

“True, but ya won’t be ready ta fight if ya push yerself ta the point of collapse, either,” Ranma responded as she guided Akane over to sit with her back against a wall.

MacKenzie walked over and sat down beside them. “It’s the lack of other people for you to spar with,” he said to Yasuko. “If there was even one more person that could give you a decent run for your money, we’d be better off. But I can’t do it, I’m not fast enough. And while Elder Ku Lon said there’s a few here around Akane’s level, maybe a little better, that’s only with their traditional weapons and from what you tell me that isn’t the weapons mix you’re going to be going up against.”

“No, it isn’t,” Yasuko agreed. “But —” She broke off as another teenage girl stepped into the dojo, Chinese, purple-haired, wearing a tight dress with a high hem, even bustier than the Princess, and stunningly gorgeous.

The newcomer walked up to the three and bowed deeply to the redhead. “Your Highness,” she intoned, and a smile seemed to flicker across her face as Yasuko groaned.

“Yeah, whatever, you’ve minded yer manners,” Yasuko replied with a wave toward her official bodyguard standing against the wall across the dojo. “Now go give Lover Boy a proper greeting.”

MacKenzie’s eyes followed the girl as she rushed across the dojo, focusing for a moment on the tight derriere the view permitted before he yanked his gaze back to Yasuko and Akane. “Who is she?” he asked with forced nonchalance.

“Oh, that’s Shampoo,” Yasuko replied then added with a smirk, “an’ she’s already taken. Besides, isn’t she a little young fer ya?”

“I’ve found that the girls grow up faster where the living’s harder,” MacKenzie said, eyes straying back toward the newcomer, then he sighed as he watched her embrace and thoroughly kiss the boy that had been holding up the dojo wall all day, except for meals and short rest breaks. “But yes, she’s definitely taken and I’m no poacher.”

“Good ta know, since Mousse could take ya — or take ya apart — in a straight up fight, too. Believe me, after all the times he attacked me I know,” Yasuko said with a grin, ignoring her new sensei’s widening eyes. “But if you’re lookin’ fer a strong wife, I’m sure there’s any number a’ girls in the village more than happy ta accommodate ya, with or without a Kiss a’ Marriage.

“Anyway,” she continued as MacKenzie shuddered (remembering what the gnomish Elder had told him about the Kiss earlier even as she assured him it wouldn’t apply), “as I was about ta say before Shampoo walked in a couple a’ weeks before she’s supposed ta be back from her mystery job, Mousse, there” — nodding toward the couple still embracing — “could do a decent job, an’ Shampoo if we could get Cologne ta bring her back early. Hey, that’s enough, you two, break it up!” she called to the couple. “Get over here, I’m gonna pull rank an’ give you two a new job.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About Akane's skill level, yes, I know that in canon Shampoo could probably beat Akane without breaking a sweat and there should be at least a few warriors back at the Amazons' village that could make their Champion work for it, so yes, there should be some that are definitely better than Akane, not just "a few around Akane's level, maybe a little better." However, for the past four months Akane has been training intensively under Ranma's tutelage, she's gotten better.


	26. As Quick as Always

In the dim light of evening coming through the high Dojo windows, Ranma watched carefully as Akane and Mu Tse circled each other, shields up and practice swords ready, sweat runneling down their faces — for Akane, around the faintly shimmering eye shield she had learned from her lover — and soaking into Mu Tse’s light padding and through Akane’s gi. (MacKenzie had been appalled at first at how little protection they’d considered necessary, until they’d demonstrated why.) Though Mu Tse had the advantage of years of weapons practice Akane had the definite edge, thanks to the fact that her shimmering lifesword was weightless and her shield was both weightless and almost transparent. The way she had spend years essentially focusing on strength and endurance training didn’t hurt. Mu Tse was finally tiring, and he knew it.

Suddenly, the Duck Boy slashed forward, striking low at a barely hinted opening in Akane’s defenses, only to see the hole vanish as her shield dropped and her sword looped around to hammer its _very_ blunted edge against the shoulder of his sword arm.

“Break, a touch!” MacKenzie called from the side where the American Marine had been watching the duel as intently as Ranma. The two combatants stepped back and bowed to each other as they panted for breath. “Mu Tse, take a break,” MacKenzie continued. “Xian Pu, you’re up!”

The purple-haired Amazon broke off the kata that MacKenzie had taught them and quickly took her lover’s place. “Good!” the still-fresh girl growled, then grinned fiercely. “The honor of the Amazons must be upheld, defeat cannot be allowed to stand!”

Akane gave MacKenzie a betrayed look, but he just chuckled. “You aren’t always going to face enemies as tired as you are,” he explained. “Better to get your first taste of it here than on the battlefield. Consider it a lesson.”

The raven-haired girl rolled her eyes, but nodded resignedly and took her mark, bowed to Xian Pu, and raised her sword and shield as Xian Pu did the same in almost mirror motions. “Fight!” MacKenzie called out, and instantly Akane charged, trying to overwhelm her opponent in the first rush, only to have her former rival fall back and to the side, leading them in a circle.

“A lesson in what?” Ranma murmured as MacKenzie fell back to join her.

“Humility, mostly,” MacKenzie murmured back. “She’s good, better than I thought she’d be after only a couple of weeks, some of the martial arts training she’s already had must be carrying over. But she’s been getting cocky, a bit full of herself — a _very_ bad attitude to take onto your first true battlefield. Hopefully, this will straighten her out without damaging her self-confidence.” Ranma breathed a sigh of relief, and her official sensei chuckled. “What, you thought that you were the only one that saw it?”

The two stood in silence as Akane’s assault bounced off Xian Pu’s solid defense, and the Amazon immediately struck back with a lightning fast blow that Akane only barely managed to parry. Xian Pu pressed her advantage, and within moments had Akane desperately backpedaling as she blocked and parried strike after strike from both sword and shield.

“So, Yasuko, when are you headed back to Tokyo?” MacKenzie asked without taking his eyes from the sparring girls.

“Tomorrow,” Ranma replied. “I pretty much learned everything ya got ta teach me the first week, the only reason I’ve stuck around is ta make sure Akane’s solid on keepin’ her sword an’ shield up — havin’ it suddenly disappear in the middle of the battle could get fatal. Now that she seems ta have mastered it, there’s other things I need ta learn back home.”

“Right, just don’t forget that what I’ve taught you is what we’ve been able to figure out from old training manuals. We _think_ we got it right, it tests well sparring, but it’s still just the basics — when the black hats show up, you’re going to be going up against people that have practiced it for real, not just as a hobby recovering a lost art.”

Ranma nodded. “I’ll remember,” she assured the Marine, then glanced at him slyly. “By the way, we’re all real impressed by yer self control, the way ya _aren’t_ fawning all over Shampoo.”

MacKenzie winced. “Am I that obvious?”

“Naw, not ta most,” Ranma said offhandedly. _At least, not ta people not able ta sense the emotion in yer ki._ “But the old bats runnin’ this place are pretty sharp. More’n one has commented on the way yer eyes follow Shampoo around, an’ wondered if ya’d like a second-best.” Fighting down a grin at the look of panic growing on the blond American’s face, she continued, “I told ‘em if ya did you’d let ‘em know, and ta leave ya alone.”

MacKenzie blew out a sigh of relief. “At least Mu Tse hasn’t noticed.”

“Oh, Mousse’s noticed, he just doesn’t have any worries where Shampoo’s concerned. You’re just lucky he’s not playin’ the lovestruck nutso anymore, or you’d be dodgin’ all sorta weird junk comin’ yer way.”

MacKenzie chuckled, shaking his head slightly. “Yasuko, from what I’ve heard in passing, you spent years surrounded by people that were either delusional nutcases, or _pretending_ to be delusional nutcases. In spite of what you’ve lived through or seen on television, most guys do _not_ go hog wild over every girl they’re attracted to, or assault the competition — not that I’m feeling suicidal enough to attack Mu Tse.”

“Yeah, I know, more or less,” the redhead agreed with a sigh. “I just haven’t _seen_ it much — I don’t get out much around normal —”

She broke off, focusing all her attention on the match, as the gasping former Tendo fell for a feint toward her face, and was simply too slow dropping her shield. Ranma winced as Xian Pu’s practice sword slammed into her opponent’s upper thigh a split second before Akane’s dropping shield knocked it to the side. _It’s a good thing she’s picked up what I could teach her about healin’ trances, ‘cause_ that’s _gonna leave a mark,_ Ranma thought as her lover’s leg gave way and dumped her to the floor. _More practice for her, good._

“Break, a touch!” MacKenzie called out. Akane managed to stand, most of her weight obviously on one leg, but when she attempted to bow, Xian Pu had to catch her to keep her from falling on her face. “Okay, I think that’s enough for the day, I’ll expect you all here bright and early in the morning,” MacKenzie continued as Ranma joined her lover and former fake fiancée in the middle of the dojo, Mu Tse falling in beside _his_ lover, and the four faced their teacher and bowed, Ranma helping Akane stay on her feet. MacKenzie returned the bow, and after making their farewells the four teens headed toward the door — slowly, with Ranma helping Akane hobble along. One of the two armed young women wearing light armor waiting there slipped out of the door ahead of them, with the other falling in behind them as they passed through the doorway.

Mu Tse pealed off from the group as they came to the intersection that led toward the royal suite, then paused when Xian Pu failed to join him, glancing toward his lover and raising an eyebrow. She shook her head and nodded toward Ranma, and he put on a woebegone look before rolling his eyes and shrugging, then continuing on toward the apartment Ranma had ordered set aside for her two friends when she asked them to join her and Akane in their surprise palace, while Xian Pu hurried to rejoin Ranma and Akane and their shadows.

/\

A freshly scrubbed Akane winced at a stab of pain as Xian Pu helped her settle into the furo attached to the royal suite. “Damn it, Shampoo, did you have to hit so _hard_?” the princess by proxy snarled, only half in jest. “I had plans for giving Ranma a proper send off tonight!”

“Don’t worry about it, Tomboy,” Ranma said offhandedly as she sank into the hot water beside her lover with a blissful sigh. “Just think of it as another reason ta do good with the healin’ trance you’re gonna practice when we get outta here.” She glanced over at the _very_ beautiful — and very naked — purple-haired girl slipping into the furo across from the other two girls, and hastily looked away. “So, Shampoo, why’d ya invite yerself ta the party? And no, I don’t buy yer story of wantin’ ta help with Akane, I coulda handled it just fine.”

Xian Pu chuckled softly at the faint blush mounting the cheeks of her former “fiancé’s” face, then leaned back with a sigh. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning to make a nuisance of myself. I just wanted to ask one last time if you’d like me or Mu Tse to join you. You’ve tried to hide how much you hate being followed everywhere by people you don’t know, but some of us know you too well.”

Ranma hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right, I _don’t_ like it,” she forced herself to admit. “I wish you two could join me. Hell, I wish _Akane_ could come along. But the reasons we’re doin’ the trainin’ here haven’t changed, she’d be bored stiff with the studyin’ I’d be doin’ with Mercury’s computer or distractin’ me — and it _would_ be distractin’, however fun it would be,” she quickly added as she briefly glanced over to leer at Akane. _Whew!_ the redhead thought as she watched her lover go from hurt anger to blushing satisfaction in a heartbeat. _I may still be stickin’ my foot in my mouth, but at least I’m realizin’ it’s there before Akane tells me — and I’m not stickin’ it in up ta the knee, anymore, either ... I think._ Turning back to Xian Pu, Her Royal Princess ignored her retainer’s broad grin at the unspoken byplay and continued, “An’ if Akane’s stayin’ here, so are you and Mousse — you two are the best sparrin’ partners she’s got.” _And besides, you two are the only ones her age in the village that can speak Japanese and treat her like Akane instead a’ the Princess’s Consort,_ Ranma added to herself as Xian Pu seemed to glow with pride.

Xian Pu shrugged nonchalantly, and grinned as Ranma quickly looked away when the motion did interesting things to the Amazon’s bountiful chest mostly submerged in the faintly steaming water. “It was worth asking one more time,” she said, then rose to her feet and fought down a chuckle at Ranma’s gulp and Akane’s glower. _Sorry, ‘Kitchen Destroyer’, but since she’s stuck as a girl, the Princess really ought to get used to being around naked girls other than you. Besides, it’s fun._ Stepping out of the furo, she grabbed a towel. “Now, I think I’ll get back to Mu Tse and let you two lovebirds have your privacy. Just remember, Ranma, you can always sleep on the train!”


	27. Still a Family

Chibi-Usa smiled happily to herself as she walked through the small carnival arm in arm with her tall, dark-haired sort-of-father on one side and her bubbly, blonde sort-of-mother on the other, pink cotton candy in one hand and blue cotton candy in the other. _Finally_ , she had gotten some time with her past (not to say prehistory) mother and father — even if it turned out they weren’t actually her mother and father. Her “father” had had his job keeping him busy most days, of course, but the princess from the future had expected to be able to spend more time with her Baka-Mama in the run up to the final battle.

It hadn’t worked out that way, thanks to Yasuko’s sudden awakening. Usa understood why Usagi had asked her and Hotaru to befriend the boy-turned-girl — if there was anyone that needed a friend that wasn’t trying to either marry her or kill her, it was Ranma — but it had taken up practically all her time that wasn’t devoted to schooling she didn’t need and the accompanying club activities, along with the occasional (but increasing) monster attacks. And then, when Ranma and Akane took themselves off to the mountain highlands and it looked as if she’d finally get some time with her “mother,” that ditzy girl — well, woman, now — had started spending all her time when hubby wasn’t home in Nerima. Usa had actually been able to spend more time with her “grandmother”! In the end Hotaru had put her foot down, making sure her friend had an evening clear, apologetically asking Auntie Nodoka to stay home (something instantly agreed to by the woman quickly becoming like another mother to the two teenagers — a mixed blessing), finding a carnival to enjoy, and calling Mamoru and Usagi and asking if they’d like to spend some quality time with their “daughter.” Speaking of which ...

The pink-haired girl turned her head to look over her shoulder, making sure her friend was still with them. “Hey, Firefly, you sure you’re okay back there?” she called to their silent shadow. The dark-haired girl nodded, smiling happily. “I’m sure,” she said so quietly Usa could barely hear her over the noise of the crowd around them, then took a bite out of her own blue cotton candy as Usa faced forward again to grin up at her “mother” smiling down at her before taking another bite from each of her own.

Usa looked around contentedly as they joined the line for the next ride. Sure, the carnival didn’t match 30th century standards with all that magitech could do, or even those of the 20th century Disneylands and their competitors. But she’d had fun watching Mamo-chan try to win her some prizes (he’d done his best, but he was no Ranma ... ah, well) and poking fun at Baka-Mama when they’d had to talk the braided blonde onto some of the rides (yes, the woman can save the world multiple times, and still be terrified by a simple high-speed loop-the-loop, and hadn’t the pinkette had fun insinuating just that!), and her best friend had been by her side through the night, smiling with enjoyment even if she didn’t join in the ribbing — much. Yes, in spite of the occasionally bloody fight with the latest war monster and the upcoming battle looming over them, this was the perfect —

Usa mentally slapped down that thought, then did her best to beat it to death as she tensed, waiting, waiting, minutes ticked by ... nothing, whew! She turned to a Hotaru eyeing her worriedly, opened her mouth to reassure her that all was well, and froze when she felt her communicator in her pocket vibrate at the same time the other three jerked slightly. Usa raised her eyes to the heavens. “Dammit, couldn’t you have let it go, just once!” she shouted to the nighttime skies, garnering odd looks from her companions (and assorted strangers around her before they politely looked away).

Mamo-chan took hold of her elbow. “Come on,” he said quietly, and the four abandoned their place in line and hurried away, around a corner between another two rides, and finally found a private spot behind the restooms. All four pulled out their communicators, the screens lighting up to reveal the blue hair-framed face of Ami. “Sorry to break up your fun time, but the Mercury Computer’s picking up a new incursion,” she said without preamble, “and the four of you’re practically on top of it, it’s about two hundred yards to the west.”

“We’re on it. I know Neptune and Uranus are busy tonight, are you, Mars or Pluto joining us?” Mamoru asked.

Ami shook her head. “Rei has a school event, she doesn’t have her communicator with her tonight. And I’m at a school year’s end party, too far north — by the time I could get there, it’ll be long over. As for Pluto, who knows?”

“Right, I suppose the four of us will have to do,” Mamoru said with a sigh. “We’ll call when it’s done.” Putting away his communicator he turned to the companions. “Well, my ladies fair, it seems it is up to us.”

The other three nodded and summoned their henshin wands, and within moments the darkness was lit up as their normal clothes vanished to be replaced by the sailor fukus. Transformation complete, Sailor Moon turned to find her husband still in his normal garb eyeing her appreciatively. “I can never get enough of that show,” he murmured. As Moon blushed and the two teenagers giggled, he quickly transformed into his own battle garb, the black armor and cape of Prince Endymion.

“The Rose Knight rides again!” Chibi-Moon quipped.

Endymion grimaced. “I still wish you hadn’t said that loud enough for the cameras to pick up,” he complained to his wife as he drew his sword.

“Ah but it’s such a _romantic_ name!” she gushed as the other girls’ giggles turned into laughter, then sobered. “Let’s go.” Endymion nodded as Saturn hefted the Silence Glaive, and the four ran toward the first of the screams.

/\

Chibi-Moon concluded once again that she _really_ didn’t like fights at night. Even when they were taking place somewhere as well-lit as the carnival, there were still shadows all around that could hide anything, and the bright lights shining down made it difficult at best to see anything that might be lurking in the dark above them.

But however poorly those lights stood in for the Sun, they were perfectly adequate at showing the latest incursion as the Soldiers of Love and Justice arrived at the scene, a central square surrounded by booths. When the four had passed through a few minutes earlier it had been packed with people trying out various games or queuing up for treats. Now, the square was empty except for bodies of men, women and children scattered about on the ground amidst the drinks and food people had discarded as they ran — and the snakes. _Huge_ snakes, much bigger than the boa constrictors Chibi-Moon had seen at the zoo she’d visited once with Hotaru. But they apparently had the same feeding habits as constrictors, several of them already wrapped around bodies and others maneuvering to circle around more.

Even as they entered the square, one of the snakes already wrapped around a man _squeezed_ , and blood spurted from the mouth of its victim. A few yards away, a woman began to scream as a snake coiled around her. Instantly, Saturn and Endymion charged forward, sword and glaive slashing, and the magically sharpened blades sliced through their targets to sweep off a pair of snake heads.

The two whirled to look over the square, separating the open area between them without a word, and triaged the snakes by level of threat, attacking the ones already coiled around people that hadn’t yet killed their meals. More snake heads rolled free, blood so red it was almost black spurting from stumps to pool on the concrete. As Saturn and Endymion dealt with the snakes, Moon and Chibi-Moon darted around them to pull people away from the giant constrictors toward the edge of the field, Moon concentrating on the adults and Chibi-Moon on the children.

Even as the pink-haired teenager from the future pulled a little blonde girl out of the way, her mind was racing — something about the situation was not right. _These are supposed to be biological weapons? Sure, they’re dangerous if you can’t move, but that’s it — these aren’t war machines, they’re a terrorist strike. And they don’t seem to be trying to either avoid or attack Hota-chan or Mamo-chan, so what knocked out all these people?_ She took a closer look at the child as she pulled her into a narrow alley between booths. The child’s eyes were open, but wandering, unfocused, and there was some kind of slimy substance coating the lower part of her face....

Chibi-Moon stood up, eyes darting from side to side, searching the shadows of the alley for the other creature that had to be around somewhere ... nothing. She was turning back toward the square with a sigh of relief when she caught a slight fluctuation in the light, a whisper of sound. Whipping around, she looked up to see another snake, much smaller, ribbed wings on each side, diving toward her out of the dark above the lights, fanged mouth gaping. A stream of pink hearts smashed into the thing, shearing away a wing from one side and sending it spiraling to the ground, but not before it coughed and a glob of mucus splashed into Chibi-Moon’s face.

She frantically wiped at her face with one hand, gagging and spitting the get the foul taste out of her mouth, as she sent another stream of hearts to turn the snake’s head into a red smear on the concrete. Threat eliminated, she whirled around toward the alley entranceway to the square only to stagger as the world suddenly went out of focus, seeming to rush toward her then withdraw, and she felt as if Earth’s gravity had suddenly halved in strength. She managed two steps forward before suddenly wobbly knees spilled her limp body on the alley floor. She didn’t feel a thing as her head bounced on the concrete.

As Chibi-Moon lay there in a timeless haze, she saw the canvas wall of the booth she was disinterestedly staring at ripple upward as the head of one of the boa constrictors on steroids pushed through underneath. The head pointed at her for a moment, tongue flickering in and out, then it slid forward toward her, more and more of its massive body following. It slithered alongside her and slowly coiled itself around her yard by yard.

As she felt more and more of her body caressed by the snake’s smooth scales, the pink-haired teenager felt the hazy unreality she was sunk into shiver. There was something unpleasant — something dangerous….

Then as the snake’s coils circled her arms and she felt her shoulders lift from the pavement, her drugged stupor shattered as she remembered a man crushed, blood spurting from his mouth. Sucking as deep a breath as the coils circling her chest allowed, she screamed as loudly as she could even as her breath gushed out when the snake began to slowly _squeeze_. “DADDY — !” Then her breath was gone and she couldn’t get it back and she felt her ribs creak as the pressure continued to grow, then she was desperately trying to shriek as her hips cracked, rib after rib snapped, she felt something rupture in her abdomen, and her last sight as the black pain rolled over her was her father’s dark armor and flashing blade.

/\

The last several months had been incredibly frustrating for Sailor Moon because, as with her little sister, she’d been sitting out more battles than she’d joined. But unlike Ranma, it hadn’t been because she wasn’t needed, but because she was mostly useless. Unlike her fellow Senshi, most of her attacks were targeted at magical threats and the beasts they’d been facing weren’t magical, however they’d been bred — or at least, not magical enough to make her anything but a target and a distraction on the battlefield.

But she _had_ been in a few and she’d remembered one in particular, if only because of her embarrassment at her clumsiness being caught on film and shown in theaters across Japan. So when she’d had the same realization that there had to be more to the enemy even faster than her “daughter”, she’d kept an eye cocked to the sky above them, what little she could see thanks to the lights above them. And so she’d been the first to see the winged snakes swooping down toward them out of the darkness.

“Incoming!” she called out as she yanked off her tiara. The tiara reshaped itself into an edged disc, and a split-second later she sent the Moon Frisbee spinning up to neatly bisect the lead snake. Even as the two halves fell writhing toward the ground, she narrowed her eyes and focused them on the rightmost of the next pair of flyers, ignoring its partner, and the Moon Frisbee curved in its flight to sweep around and intersected the flyer and slice off a wing as it flew back to its owner. Moon snatched the Moon Frisbee out of the air and spun to the side, long blond braid whipping around her, as the last flyer spat a glob of mucus past her head as it pulled out of its dive. A quick toss, and Moon ignored the scattered pieces falling from the sky to scan the square as she held up a hand and the disc slapped into her palm.

In the middle of the square, Saturn and Endymion had their eyes on the winged snakes circling above them. Mucus dripped from the curved double blade of the Silence Glaive and coated one of Saturn’s shoulders, and she was absentmindedly stomping on the head of one tiny snake lying on the concrete at her feet. Endymion was circling, his blood-streaked sword held ready. Moon quickly again threw the Moon Frisbee, guiding its path to cut a bloody swath through the circling pack, and within seconds the only snakes left were dropping from the sky in pieces.

Moon looked over the bloody trash- and body-filled ground as she hurried to join the other two. All the giant constrictors were dead, the paralyzed people were mostly pulled to the side and some were beginning to move a little, and — “Where’s Chibi-Moon?’ she demanded, looking around frantically.

“She was pulling people out of danger, the last I saw,” Endymion responded. “That was just before —”

“DADDY!”

Endymion and the two Senshi whipped around at the shriek, and Endymion charged forward into the poorly lit alley. Moon and Saturn followed right behind him, arriving in time to have to dodge the sudden fountain of blood from the now headless giant boa coiled around their best friend and “daughter.”

Endymion didn’t bother to dodge, ignoring the blood that splashed across him to frantically pull the snake’s coils away from Chibi-Usa until she was lying alone on the concrete. Saturn dropped to her knees beside her best friend. “Is … is she …”

Endymion felt for a pulse. “She’s alive,” he said, shoulders slumping in relief. “Moon, get her out of here — yes, I know that means you have to carry her like this, but we can’t leave her here. Saturn and I need to check the rest of the booths for any more constrictors hiding in them.”

Moon opened her mouth to protest, only to pause as she remembered — they were being watched, and not by the camera crews that haunted Juuban this time. If she healed her daughter here …”Right,” she finally said with a voice leached of all emotion. Kneeling, she scooped up the younger girl as gently as she could, tears starting to roll down her cheeks as the unconscious Chibi-Moon whimpered, then turned to run as smoothly as she could across the square and away from the battlefield. _The bathrooms we changed behind, they’ll be empty by now with everyone fled, I don’t remember any windows, that’ll do,_ she thought fiercely as she ran.

Behind her, Saturn and Endymion grimly took turns looking through the booths while the other kept an eye on the skies.


	28. The Beginning of the End

Ranma shifted uncomfortably, glancing around at what little she could see of the train car she was standing in, as she reflected that she really had to do something about her pride. The train from Nikko to Tokyo hadn’t been bad, she hadn’t felt more than uncomfortable with all the strange men around her. Between those men and the male Amazons she had met at their new village, she had decided she was _finally_ over her nervousness around male strangers and had been feeling rather pleased with herself and smug about her decision to order her “bodyguards” to keep their distance — right up to the point that she got on the train to the apartment she and Akane shared with Nabiki.

Now, the short redhead was surrounded by taller men, some of them giving her the eye in spite of her lack of makeup (not that she’d ever worn any since before The Day and not really by choice then) and the plain windbreaker, T-shirt and jeans she was wearing; she couldn’t see the two Amazon warriors (both female) detailed to “protect” her (and was fervently hoping she didn’t locate them through other means — such as screams from men that wouldn’t get out of their way); and she was finding it increasingly hard to keep from shaking. She had long since been driven to fall out of her center, thanks to the lust-filled ki of some of the men around her — the last thing she wanted was to remember them the next time Akane gave her that happy leer she loved so much, and all that went with it.

Which was why it came as a complete surprise when she felt the first faint brush of fingers across a firm buttock.

/oOo\

In the apartment that until a few weeks ago she had been sharing with her younger sister and her sister’s lover, Nabiki finally gave up, set aside her abacus, and leaned back in her chair as she rubbed her eyes. Once again, she wondered what she’d been thinking when she’d followed Setsuna-kun’s advice and gone with a finance college major. Granted, it was easy enough (or at least, it was when she wasn’t worrying about a certain redhead that should have gotten home hours ago, not that she’d say so), but it was _boring_!

Standing, the pageboy-haired girl again walked to the window and stared down into the street, telling herself that if there was anyone that could take care of herself, it was Ranma. There had to be a perfectly reasonable cause for Ranma’s tardiness, nothing to worry about. _Yeah, right, keep right on telling yourself that. Good thing you aren’t interested in having kids, girl, you’d never be able to save your rep._

Nabiki had just decided to take yet another stab at her homework and was turning back toward the table, when a police car turned onto the street. As Nabiki turned back to watch, the car pulled up to a stop in front of her apartment building and two unfamiliar girls got out of the back of the car, one with brown hair, one pink, and a very familiar redhead got out of the passenger-side front seat. Ranma turned to say something to the driver, then the car pulled away as Ranma disappeared out of Nabiki’s sight as she headed for the front door while the two Amazons (who else?) headed for the alley and its fire escapes.

/\

Ranma sighed with relief as she unlocked the apartment door and stepped through, then froze at finding herself under the middle Tendo’s gimlet gaze. “Okay, Ranma, what did you do _this_ time?” Nabiki growled.

“Uh, nothin’, really, what makes ya think I did anything?” the redhead asked, reaching up to scratch nervously underneath the base of her pigtail.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you arrived in a _police car_?” Nabiki asked.

Ranma blushed even as she felt something in her relax at the other girl’s sarcastic tone — was Nabiki _finally_ getting back to normal around her? “Oh, saw that, did ya?”

“Yes, I did, so give!”

“Well, on the train home ... I got groped,” Ranma admitted, eyes falling to the floor.

Nabiki stiffened, eyes widening. “Groped? How badly did you hurt him? Not too serious, or you wouldn’t be here right now....”

Eyes still firmly on the floor, blush deepening, Ranma replied, “He ought ta be able ta use his hand again ... eventually.”

“Well, good! And good for you.”

At that, Ranma’s eyes shot up to Nabiki’s face. “You aren’t angry I lost control like that?” she asked in surprise.

“After what happened to you, I’d say you _kept_ control,” Nabiki said firmly. “If you’d _really_ lost it, he’d be in the morgue. And as a girl that’s been groped herself, I almost wish you had, it might discourage some of those assholes. Still, I can hope this will deter a few when word gets out.”

“Sorry, but it isn’t — gettin’ out, that is,” Ranma replied, relaxing. “He’s some kinda bigshot, and he said he wouldn’t charge me with assault if I didn’t charge him for gropin’ me.”

“Too bad,” Nabiki grumbled as she grabbed her purse from off the table. “But at least there’s _one_ groper that isn’t likely to be bothering girls any time soon. Now, come on.”

“‘Come on’? Where are we goin’? I need ta call Akane an’ let her know I’m here, she made me promise when I left. And then I need ta go see Usa!”

“You will, it’s a Senshi meeting and we’re invited. In fact, it’s on hold until you show up, so make your phone call and let’s go.”

A quick (and, Nabiki noticed, somewhat tense) phone call later, Ranma asked, “Where’re we headed?” as she and Nabiki strode toward the door.

“The Hikawa Shrine, where else?”

“Where — so they told ya, did they? Why? I thought they were tryin’ ta keep ya away from Senshi business.” Ranma said as she followed the older girl out of the apartment and Nabiki turned to lock the door behind them.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing. Maybe because of my visit to the Kunos?” Nabiki mused thoughtfully as the two headed for the stairs.

/oOo\

As Rei led the two former Nerimans into a Hikawa Shrine family room filled with all the Senshi but Sailor Pluto, Ranma’s eyes were instantly drawn to the pink-haired teenager sitting — cuddling, really — between her parents’ counterparts with her raven-haired best friend sitting on the floor at her feet. “Usa!” she called, charging forward, and Hotaru laughed as she rolled out of the way of the concerned girl. She needn’t have bothered, though, because Ranma stopped when she got to the four, suddenly unsure what to do. “Ya look okay, ya feelin’ all right?” she asked uncertainly.

Usa rose from between her parents and embraced the redhead. Ranma stiffened for a moment, then relaxed as her own arms circled the other girl. “I’m fine, really, just like we told you last night,” Usa said softly in Ranma’s ear. “Mom got me to safety and fixed me right up, faster than my own healing ability would have.”

Ranma finally broke the hug to hold the princess from the future at arm’s length, eyes examining her friend. The other girl seemed all right physically, but ... her face seemed a little pinched, eyes haunted.... “Ya sure? Ya look ... look ...” _... fragile...._

“Hey, I’ll admit that it hurt worse than anything I can remember,” Usa tossed off with a slightly stiff smile, “and I’m probably going to relive it in my dreams from time to time,” — _... like last night,_ she thought, not mentioning the way Hotaru had held her in her lap and rocked her after she’d woken up the entire Outer household with her scream — “but I’ll be all right. _You_ are, after all, right?”

Ranma suppressed a wince as memories of a man’s shrieks of pain and the feel of her hand gripping down on cracking bones flashed through her mind. “A’ course, we’re tough!” she said determinedly.

“Yes, the two of you are,” came the gentle voice of the Senshi of Time from the side, and the two girls jumped as everyone else’s heads whipped around to look at the corner of the room. “And now that you’re here, Yasuko,” the emerald-haired woman in a long skirt and business suit continued, “why don’t we start the meeting? Once we get that out of the way we can get to what everyone _really_ wants — to hear how you’ve been doing the past couple of weeks.”

“Right!” Ranma agreed, blushing, and looked around for a seat. Her eyes widened at the sight of Nodoka watching from the other couch, and with a grin and shrug for her friend she went to join her mother as Usa sat back down and snuggled between her parents, whose arms were instantly again around her.

“So,” Setsuna said once everyone had settled back down, “I suppose this calls for a bit more of an explanation on how the Time Gates work.” She glanced over with a smile at a suddenly alert Ami. “Most of you were here when I compared the past to a long string, the future as a spider web of choices and consequences, and the present being where the ‘string’ of the past comes into the center of the ‘web’ of the future.”

“Yes, you told us,” Haruka said dryly. “That’s not to say we _understood_ you, but you told us.”

Ami rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, only to pause, then settle back in her seat at an amused glance from Setsuna. “ _Anyway_ ,” the emerald-haired woman continued determinedly, “the point is that there are a multitude of possible futures, but the number of possibilities narrows the closer they get to us. Eventually, they narrow down to one, the present. And sometimes, for all practical purposes it narrows to one a little further out — like now.” Ranma and all the Senshi straightened, suddenly totally focused on their mistress of Intelligence, and Setsuna nodded, glancing at Usa sympathetically before sweeping her gaze around the room. “After what happened to Chibi-Moon last night, the Arlana Confederacy seems to have _almost_ decided to set the invasion date at sixteen days from yesterday. They’ll make one more probing attack in eight days that will most likely be intercepted by the Outers — and _must_ be intercepted by Saturn, whoever else shows up. She and Chibi-Moon have been an obvious pair to date, arriving together every time they’ve fought one of the probes, and having Saturn show up without her constant partner will cement their decision.”

A soft sigh seemed to sweep the room. Mamoru’s and Usagi’s arms tightened about their daughter-by-blood even as Usagi’s worried eyes fixed on her younger sister. Nodoka circled her arms about her daughter, and Ranma relaxed into her mother’s embrace even as she nodded reassuringly back at Usagi. Hotaru shifted to lay her head in her longest friend’s lap as she watched her foster parents slip their arms around each other and gaze back.

Makoto, Rei and Ami glanced around at the scene, then Rei and Makoto focused on their blue-haired comrade. For a moment she simply gazed back, reluctant to interrupt the scene, but finally sighed and said, “So Setsuna, we’ll need to bring in Ranma’s people — both the martial artists and the Amazons, get with the city government so it can quietly evacuate the area around where the invaders will be coming in, I assume you can supply maps laying out the battlefield so we can plan our attack, anything else?”

“Yes, there is,” Setsuna responded. “You know I’ve been in contact with the Emperor, and the Defense Force will be supplying troops, as well.” Usagi sat bolt upright, mouth opening for a reprimand, only to pause as the Senshi of Time raised a hand, looking over at her. “No, Princess, I didn’t reveal what’s going on to the authorities, the Emperor’s people already knew — how do you think they’ve been able to get all that footage of us for those pre-movie newsreels? Why do you think they were willing to help Yasuko’s Amazons move to Japan? They actually _bought out an entire village_ to give them a home.”

Everyone stared at Setsuna in shock, then Ami shook her head. “How did I _miss_ that?” she asked incredulously. “ _Of course_ they’d have to have at least _some_ knowledge of what’s going on! So how much do they know about us?”

“Pretty much everything,” Setsuna admitted with a shrug. “Don’t worry, the Emperor and his people have been _very_ careful to make sure our private lives stay private. But they aren’t willing to sit this one out. I know the troops will have only their clamshells and helmets for barely effective armor and bayonet-tipped rifles that are basically clumsy spears, but used right they’ll make a real difference.”

“But ... but they’ll be slaughtered! It’ll be even worse than the Amazons!” Usagi protested.

“Maybe not as bad as ya think,” Ranma disagreed. “And even if they are, it’s their right — their duty — ta help, and we would dishonor them if we refused ta let them.”

Usagi looked over beseechingly at the redhead, but Ranma simply gazed back calmly, and finally her older sister’s shoulders slumped. “All right, I won’t protest,” she said resignedly.

“Thank you, Princess,” Setsuna softly said, then stepped to the table in the middle of the couches and chairs and laid down her briefcase. Opening it up, she pulled out a stack of maps. “Here are better maps than the one you drew out a couple months ago, Ranma. Now, it seems to me these apartment buildings along this edge of the park ...”

/\

“You know, Ranma, I’m a little surprised Akane didn’t come back with you,” Hotaru commented quietly as she and Usa watched the party the meeting had turned into from the couch where they flanked their friend while Ranma chowed down on the snacks.

Ranma paused in her assault on Makoto’s cookies, wincing slightly. “Uh ... yeah, that actually took some work ta get her ta stay behind, even though we knew Usa was all right,” she admitted.

Usa glanced slyly over at her friend. “Ah, did the lovebirds actually have a fight over little old me?” she drawled.

“Yeah, almost as bad as the one when I tried ta get her ta stay here,” Ranma mumbled. “My turn ta win, but not how I wanted ta spend my last evening with her for a few weeks.”

“Well, just think of how much fun you’ll have making up with her when she _does_ get back,” Usa teased.

Ranma blushed as red as her hair and glanced around hastily, then rose to her feet at the sight of Ami heading for the door, apparently the first to leave the party. “Just a moment, I need ta talk ta Ami about when I can use her portable infomat for learnin’ more about the Lifedancers,” she said and bounced over the couch that was in the way, ignoring the chuckles from her friends as she did.


	29. Final Probe

Hotaru had wondered from time to time why Setsuna-mama was so chintzy when it came to giving out details about when and where attacks would take place. As she glanced up at the clock on her bedroom wall from where she lay on her bed, she decided she had at least part of the answer. One hour to go.

Sighing, she refocused on the book she had propped up on her stomach (and reflected yet again that sooner or later, her bust _had_ to develop to the point that she couldn’t read like this — how was she supposed to attract boys if they kept mistaking her for their little sister?).

A few minutes later, her eyes again strayed to the wall. Fifty-six minutes to go.

Forty-eight minutes.

Forty-three minutes.

The raven-haired girl used one of Haruka-papa’s favorite words as she realized she’d just covered the same page yet again, and had no more idea what she’d read than the first time.

“Ouch, don’t let your Michiru-mama hear you say that. Where did you learn that one, anyway?”

Hotaru looked up to find the blonde bishonen figure of her Haruka-papa leaning against the door frame to her room, smirking at her adopted daughter. The sixteen-year-old smirked back before assuming a bland, questioning expression. “I got it from you, Haruka-papa, didn’t you intend to let me hear you, the last time you were working on your bike?” she asked innocently, then grinned when Haruka winced.

“Double-ouch,” the young woman said, straightening and stepping into the room. (Not that a stranger would have guessed her sex without a second look, considering that she was following her usual penchant for men’s wear.) “So, just why are you using language just a few years too old for you?” she asked.

Hotaru held up her book. “I’m just having a little trouble concentrating, that’s all. The waiting is getting to me a little, I think it may be worse than the actual fighting,” she admitted.

“It’s getting to me, too,” Haruka agreed, as she read the title on the book’s spine: _Fundamentals of Human Physiology_. “Maybe you’ll find it easier to concentrate if you read something a little lighter — that looks like a college textbook.”

“It is,” Hotaru said with a shrug. “I thought I’d see if learning how the body works will help my healing gift.”

“Like Ranma?” Haruka asked as she sat on the bed.

Hotaru sat up and put the book aside. “Well ... yes,” she admitted somewhat shamefacedly. “Ranma’s spending hours every day with Ami studying the lifedancers, and ... and I haven’t done anything like that. Maybe I could have saved —”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Haruka interrupted. “Your gift doesn’t work the same way as Ranma’s — you’ve actually healed people without even trying, pure instinct. Ranma ... she hasn’t healed anyone yet except for herself, in spite of all the study and the hours she’s spent at the emergency room. She doesn’t dare, yet, and I don’t blame her. Those are real people she’d be using as guinea pigs if she did.” Tapping the book lying on the bed between them, she said, “Study this if you enjoy the subject, but don’t try to forcefeed yourself knowledge you don’t need — or you could end up like the centipede that tried to think through how it walked.”

Haruka looked blank for a moment, before nodding her understanding as she dredged up the memory of the story from one of the children’s books her adopted parents had read to her several growth spurts ago. “I wish Usa could join us,” she muttered.

“You know why she can’t,” Haruka said, stating the obvious, and lay down on the bed. “Where _is_ the Spore, anyway? I’d think she’d still be here at least, even if she can’t join the fight.”

Hotaru chuckled at the nickname Usagi had given her best friend as she lay down next to her father figure. “She decided to join her mom for the latest run to Nerima — something about avoiding temptation,” she replied. “Really, though, I think it’s just an excuse to spend more time with Usagi — she’s been doing that a lot, since the last probe.”

“Understandable, seeing how she almost died,” Haruka mused. “So, once this is over, just how do Ranma and the Three Musketeers intend to spend the summer break?”

/oOo\

As Saturn twisted to the side, two long, thin spikes flashing past her side, she grimly reflected that she was an idiot — the wait _wasn’t_ worse than the actual fighting, not even close. The youngest Senshi glanced around the battlefield that had been a popular park for the neighborhood’s young mothers less than half an hour earlier, before a hole into otherwhere opened up and the guard dog-sized scorpionoids with multiple thin spikes on their stegosaurus-like tails in place of a stinger had flooded through for the long seconds before it closed.

Ami’s computer had detected the incursion immediately, of course, and three of the four Outer Senshi had arrived within less than ten minutes. By that time the park had emptied out, and for some reason the huge scorpionoids had stayed in the park; casualties would be _much_ lower than they could have been. But even as the Senshi of Silence tried to tell herself that this was a _good_ thing, the normally gentle girl could feel bitter, angry hatred roiling in her gut as her eyes passed across the bodies lying scattered about on the grass and cement walkways — hatred, and guilt. However much she had appreciated the story she’d been told weeks earlier of Churchill and Coventry, every time her eyes fell on a still body that was much too small her soul shrieked that they should have been _faster_.

_At least the clean-up is almost over,_ she thought as she almost casually swung up the Silence Glaive to intercept a springing scorpionoid, its tail empty of spikes. The blow slipped between the scorpionoid’s reaching pincer-claws to split its body in half lengthwise in mid-air, and Saturn stepped to the side to avoid the plummeting pieces and ... mostly ... the shower of ichor. Even as she grimaced in distaste at the spatters she felt across her face (and took a split-second to be grateful for the training Ranma had almost forced on her in the use of her appointed weapon), she heard the distinctive sound of her foster-”father’s” World Shaking attack from the other end of the park, and smiled grimly — the things they’d been fighting must have bunched up again, it seemed that their impromptu plan of Uranus and Neptune drawing the attention of the bulk of the _things_ down on themselves where their attacks could deal with them en masse while Saturn took the perimeter to pick off the stragglers had worked —

Then the raven-haired teenager’s head whipped around, her heart freezing at the first sounds of a child’s whimpers coming from nearby, her eyes fixing on an upright stroller beside the body of a young woman Saturn assumed was the child’s mother. Even as she sprinted toward the stroller and the child’s whimpers turned to full-powered cries, she prayed that she had killed the last of the stragglers, that any that might be left had exhausted their limited supply of tail spikes ... but there, beyond the stroller and body, she saw another of the _things_ turning toward the now rocking stroller, attracted by the child’s struggles, arched tail rising to fire the few spikes left on its tip.

Saturn dove over the stroller and tucked into a roll, coming to her feet between the scorpionoid and its target, bringing up her Silence Wall — too late, two of the spikes hit, one passing straight through an upper thigh and the other slamming into her abdomen, piercing the armor of her fuku at the front and pushing the fabric slightly outward in back. Fighting down a shriek as the pain hammered her, she dropped the Wall and threw the Silence Glaive like a spear, pinning the _thing_ to the ground. Even as the glaive struck, she grabbed the handbreadth of spike sticking out of her stomach and yanked it out, grateful that it hadn’t hit any bone and gotten stuck — she _really_ wouldn’t have enjoyed having to wait until one of her foster parents found her and pulled it out for her.

She gasped in relief as she felt the pain already receding, dropping the spike and turning toward the screaming child only to freeze at the sight of the red stains spreading across the stroller’s back. Then she was charging over and whipping around the stroller, eyes going wide at the blood pulsing from two holes low in the little boy’s shirt. Fighting to keep her hands from shaking, the youngest Senshi unbuckled the boy as quickly as she could and pulled him out of the stroller. Pulling his T-shirt off over his head, she bunched it underneath his back and pressed her hands down over the pulsing blood. Fighting to ignore his weakening cries, struggling for calm, she sought to open herself up to her gift — and then she felt as if she was sinking into the body beneath her, sensing the weakening spark that she somehow knew was the dying child’s life, and poured her own will to live into that guttering point of light. Under the onslaught of pure will to live, the guttering stopped, the spark brightened slightly — and there it stopped, holding steady but growing no stronger.

She never knew how long she crouched over the boy, fighting for his life before she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and heard the voice of her foster-mother. “Saturn? The paramedics are here — how long until you finish healing him?” Neptune asked softly.

“I can’t!” Saturn managed to cry out. “It’s taking everything I have to keep him alive, if I ease off he’ll die before I can _do_ anything!”

The hand left her shoulder. Through the dim haze her concentration had reduced the world around her down to, she seemed to hear the murmur of conversation, Mercury’s name, Yasuko ... then a hand was on her shoulder again — this time her foster-”father.” “Saturn, the paramedics are going to take you to the hospital Yasuko is at right now, if anyone can help you it’s her. But they have to shift the two of you onto a stretcher and get you into an ambulance. Can you hold on while they do that?”

Saturn nodded jerkily, beads of the sweat beginning to roll down her face shaking loose to spatter the back of her hands and across the boy’s bare chest. “Spikes went straight through ... shirt under his back stopping bleeding,” she gasped out.

“Right, good girl,” Uranus acknowledged, and after more faintly heard conversation Saturn felt hands cover hers, gently pinning them in place. Other hands gripped her legs, lifting and shifting her around to straddle the child, then lifting her again, the boy rising with her, coming down on the canvas-covered poles of the stretcher, rising again and moving, the light dimming from moving into the back of the ambulance, settling, and then rocking slightly as the vehicle eased into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't able to find much on Hotaru's healing ability once she becomes Sailor Saturn, so what the heck, this is already AU. By decree, I'm ruling that her healing talent is separate from her Senshi powers and based on ki, and while more powerful now that she isn't weakened by the possession is still street-level cinematic.


	30. Healing Hands

Vanguard sighed as she leaned back in her seat in the emergency room (remembering to keep her legs crossed in spite of the spandex shorts under her skirt — Akane had warned her about that when she’d learned of her lover’s plans in one of their nightly telephone conversations, and Nabiki had enjoyed twitting her about showing off for the boys when she forgot).

It was a quiet afternoon, and in spite of her need for cases to practice on she was glad — some of what she’d seen over the past week had been nauseating. She turned a little green as she remembered one case in particular, a driver whose car had gotten rolled by a truck: blood everywhere, the tense voices of doctors and nurses fighting to save their patient, Vanguard fighting for the calm she needed to keep her center in the midst of the emotional maelstrom, to reach out with her ki and meld it throughout the patient’s body, intermingle it with his own ki, sense where things weren’t right, give terse reports of what she was sensing as best she could understand it to the doctors — and all the time ignoring the film crew that had shown up the same night she and Mercury had asked permission for Vanguard’s ‘studies’ standing back in one corner as out of the way as possible.

_If only there had been some sort of manual in Ami’s infomat!_ Vanguard thought to herself. _If I had more than just descriptions of what the lifedancers could do, maybe —_

“Hot chocolate?”

The redhead looked up, unsurprised. By now she was getting to the point that maintaining her center was second nature, and so she had sensed the approach of the camera crew’s director — male, but safely familiar. “Thanks ... Inouoe-san,wasn’t it?” she replied as she looked up, pensive expression vanishing into a smile as she accepted the steaming cup he was offering.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and waited as Vanguard took a careful sip and grimaced at the heat. After a few moments, he asked, “May I sit down?”

“Oh, right, sorry, yes!” she exclaimed, blushing. As he took his seat with a chuckle, she added, “I never got the chance ta thank ya for yer suggestion the last time we talked — about the sword. It was brilliant.”

“You’re welcome,” he repeated, and leaned back in the seat, looking across the room to the rest of his crew. “So, just what had you so thoughtful, anything else I can give you more good advice on?”

“Nah, afraid not,” Vanguard replied. I was just wishin’ that the lifedancers had left some how-to manuals behind. Not that it would help much, most likely — I think they were a bunch of navel-gazers.”

“Navel-gazers?”

“Yeah. Ya know what I do is ‘cause I can control ki, right?” He nodded, and she continued, “Well, most everybody that does that uses emotions ta focus — confidence, anger, greed, depression ... l-l-lust. But it turns out that’s a bad idea, the more ya do it, the stronger that emotion gets.”

“Yes, I can see how that could cause problems,” Inouoe said thoughtfully. “And these lifedancers don’t do this?”

“I didn’t think so at first — they were incredible healers instead a’ fighters, could live as long as they wanted, didn’t blow themselves up or become menaces ta everyone around them — but the more I think about it the more I think I was wrong. I think they focused their ki through ... calm ... peace ...”

“Serenity?”

“Yeah, that’s the word. Eventually, they’d get ta the point that they were so serene that they couldn’t care less what happened to themselves or anyone else. I bet that they’d just ... fade away.”

Breaking off for a moment to test her chocolate, she decided it had cooled enough and took a large sip before adding, “Which means that even if they’d left a manual behind, I’d still hafta just use it ta see what they could do and come up with another way ta do it.”

“Ah, so _that’s_ what you’re doing here, we’d wondered,” he commented.

“Yeah, I thought I’d better figure out what I was doin’ before I tried muckin’ about with other people’s bodies,” she agreed, before concentrating on the cupful of bliss she held.

Vanguard was halfway through her coming sugar high when suddenly she jerked, chocolate sloshing out across her face, at the feel of her communicator vibrating against her leg in its special sheath. Hastily setting aside the cup, she stood and popped the snaps holding shut a short slit in her skirt and slipped her hand through the opening to pull out the buzzing device.

Turning so that the tiny viewscreen couldn’t be seen by the suddenly alert man beside her (and failing to notice the signal he sent his crew as he rose and stepped to the side), she hit the ‘accept’ button and Sailor Mercury appeared on the screen, face tense. “Mercury, what’s wrong?” an abruptly worried Vanguard asked.

“ _There’s an ambulance on its way to you right now, with Saturn and a wounded child in it,”_ Mercury replied. _“The boy took some hits during the latest incursion — Saturn’s the only thing keeping him alive, and she doesn’t have anything left to heal him.”_

“What?” Vanguard shrieked as her face turned pale. “Mercury, I’ve never healed anyone, only sensed where the damage was and told the docs!”

“ _I don’t see any scars across your blind eyes,”_ Mercury rebutted.

“Yeah, but I _slept_ through that — that’s why it’s called a healing _trance_!”

In the communicator’s tiny screen, Mercury sighed, eyes sympathetic. _“I know, and if there’s nothing you can do, then there’s nothing you can do — ask any paramedic or emergency room worker, and they’ll tell you that it happens — a lot. And maybe the doctors can do more than I think. But, Saturn’s giving everything she has to keep the boy alive, you have to at least try.”_

Pausing for a moment, she slowly added, _“Ra — Yasuko, I’ve been thinking about it, since we failed to find any manuals — how you healed yourself while essentially unconscious. The body knows how to heal itself already, maybe you just need to ... encourage it, provide the energy for the healing, something like that. Or maybe you can take over keeping the boy alive from Saturn, and_ she _can heal him. Either way, it’s something to try.”_

Vanguard took a deep breath, and nodded firmly. “Right. I’ll do what I can, an’ maybe we’ll get lucky.”

/\

By the time the ambulance arrived, Vanguard was a bundle of nerves, pacing back and forth, rubbing her arms, actually shivering slightly. Then the doors were opened by Sailors Neptune and Uranus, and two nurses carefully pushed in a gurney. On the gurney was a bloodsoaked stretcher, and on the stretcher was the purple, maroon and white fukued form of Sailor Saturn, still crouched over a very young boy — barely more than a baby.

One glance at Saturn, and Vanguard knew that there would be no help there, beyond what the younger girl was already giving — her raven tresses were plastered to her forehead and cheeks, sweat was running down her face and dripping from her chin onto the child beneath her, and her hands and arms trembled lightly.

_Right, so it’s up to me,_ Vanguard thought, suddenly calm, her own shivering gone. She waited until the nurses had carefully moved Saturn and the boy from the stretcher to an examination table, then stepped forward to the head of the table, placed her hands on either side of the boy’s head, and closed her eyes as her awareness sank into the wounded body. In practically a monotone, she began reciting the injuries as usual — lacerated liver, punctured kidney, sliced blood vessels and heavy internal bleeding.... And what she didn’t report, the flickering, fading sense of unfamiliar life cocooned and mixed with that of her friend.

Report finished, Ranma simply ‘stared’ at the scene for a long moment, lost, not knowing what to do. Then, remembering Mercury’s suggestion, she thought back to her own healing, the image she had wrapped herself in as she sank into the healing trance: the happy, if rueful, redhead at the ice cream parlor as her friends worked on a costume for her. And while the boy was a complete stranger, perhaps _he_ could remember....

She focused on the dying life, somehow ‘pushed’ herself toward it, until they merged together. Instantly, she found herself caught in a whirlwind of fear, pain, shock, fear, a constant scream reverberating: _“Mommmmyyyy!”_ and she “yanked” herself away, and found herself staggering back from the table. One of the nurses caught an arm just as she started to fall, and for a moment she clung to him as she gasped for breath, uncaring in her shock that he was a strange man.

“Okay, first calm down the kid,” Vanguard murmured as she fought to reacquire her center. But how? Maybe some happy memories of her own? But from the child’s reaction, she was going to need a mother figure....

Again, bracing herself for the onslaught, she stepped forward to touch the boy’s temples and sank in, sought and merged with the still-dimming life. As the fear and pain whirled ‘around’ her, she fought to maintain her calm. This time, she thought back to the lunch she’d had with her mother, how she and her sister and friends had spirited the Saotome matriarch away from her home and Genma, the way her mother had insisted on holding her in her arms at the last Senshi meeting.

As she remembered the good times, she tried to harness the memory of the love and happiness that she’d felt, both her own and her mother’s, suffuse it somehow with her own ki, project it out to the frightened child — and found herself back in the emergency room, as the calm pool of her center shattered under the wave of emotions.

_Damn!_ As she took a moment to catch her mental breath, Vanguard glanced up at Saturn. The other girl’s tremors had grown worse, and Uranus was actually holding her up while Neptune kept Saturn’s hands in place — they were almost out of time.

Again, Vanguard let go of her emotions, sought out her calm center (even more of a struggle this time, she was beginning to lose it), and reaching out to lightly grip a tiny hand, sank back into the fading child, sought out that spark of light — a spark that was even dimmer, its flickering even more pronounced.

Again they merged, Ranma ignoring the pain and fear battering at her. _Okay, dumbass, so you can’t merge emotion with yer ki an’_ _keep yer center, why ya thought ya could — later, the kid first. But how about a_ partial _merger, just enough ta let the emotions ride along, twisted together, like corded rope?_ Again, she sought out the memories, friends and family, how _good_ life had been since leaving the dojo, again let those feelings of love and friendship touch her center, her life, but this time strained to keep them separate but together and reached out to the boy ... if only those emotions would “stick” —

The scream of pain and need she had been fighting to ignore abruptly broke off. _“Mommy?”_

Ranma hesitated for a split second, then “sent” somehow, _“Yes, Mommy’s here.”_

“ _Mommy, it_ hurts _!”_

“ _I know. Let Mommy make it better, it’ll go away in just a little bit.”_ An easy promise to make since it would, whatever happened, but ... Ranma ‘reached’ out, and gasped as the pain hammered into her, through her. Fighting to hold her calm, she let it wash through her and felt the child she ‘held’ relax as the shared pain eased.

Okay, that had calmed the kid down, now for the memory. _“You know what will make things better? Think of a happy time, that will help. How about the last time your mo — I took you out for ice cream?”_ Surely all mothers took their children out for the food of the kami, right?

If not, at least this boy’s mother did, and Ranma found herself sitting at a table in an unfamiliar ice cream parlor, watching as the boy sitting across the table dove into a small bowl of chocolate and vanilla ice cream with a gusto to match her at her worst ... and even worse table manners as he managed to spread his treat across his cheeks, down his chin, over his hands — good thing he was wearing a bib.

His spoon scraped along the bottom of the bowl, and she felt herself rise, walk around the table, reaching out with some napkins to wipe gently at his face and hands. “So, was this worth waiting a little bit?” she heard herself ask as her hands opened a packet with an already damp cleansing wipe.

“You bet!” the boy responded happily. “Thanks, Mom, you’re the best!”

Ranma felt tears prickle at her eyes at the wave of love and happiness that washed over her. _Yes, this will more than do,_ she thought. Remembering how it had felt before, she focused on the happy, healthy energetic boy whose face she was wiping. _Like this — I want us to be like this._ And she took the memory and wrapped it around them as the world slowly faded away.

/\

Saturn gasped with relief, Uranus catching her as every quaking muscle in the Senshi of Silence’s body went limp at once and tried to dump her on top of the boy she was still kneeling over. She knew she was going to be overjoyed when she’d had some rest, but now the only thing she wanted was sleep.

Opening her eyes, the teenager forced herself to look up at the doctors and nurses gathered round. “It’s done, I think she did it, everything should be all right, just don’t separate them,” she managed to get out, before sheer exhaustion hammered her under and her head dropped, heavy beads of sweat a light shower down onto the stomach and chest of the boy beneath her.

Neptune released her adopted daughter’s bloody hands and stepped back as Uranus gathered the limp girl up in her arms. “No, you _both_ did it,” the short-haired blonde whispered. “Well done, my little one — oh well done!”

Neptune smiled at the two briefly before turning her eyes on the doctors and nurses swarming forward. “You heard her?” she asked the closest doctor.

“Yes, don’t separate them,” he acknowledged as he closely watched a nurse sponge away the blood on the boy’s abdomen. His eyes widened as the cleansing revealed a nasty — but closed — pair of scars. “Yes, _definitely_ don’t separate them,” he repeated fervently, and quickly order that the boy’s and Vanguard’s hands be strapped together at the wrists ... carefully, making sure not to break Vanguard’s loose grip on the boy’s hand.

Once that was done, the nurses cautiously rolled the boy onto his side and gently pulled away the bloody shirt stuck to his back. A sponge bath revealed matching scars there as well, and the doctors sighed in relief. “How long until we can untie them!” asked one.

“I’d say wait until Vanguard wakes up and ask her,” Uranus suggested. “She’s the one that’s doing the healing.”

“She’ll wake up on her own, then?”

“She did when she healed herself.” Uranus looked back down at her daughter’s sleeping face. “Why don’t I put this one in a bed next to those two? She’ll want to know everything’s all right as soon as she wakes up.”

“Certainly, we can do that,” the doctor agreed, and turned to the nurses. “All right, let’s get them out of here and into a bed.”

/oOo\

“That is very good to hear,” Setsuna said softly into her Senshi communicator, her eyes roaming her New York hotel room, what little could be seen in the streetlamp and predawn light leaking around the edges of the room’s curtains. “I’m glad they managed to pull it off.”

“ _You didn’t know how it would work out?”_ Mercury asked.

“I knew how it was most likely to work out, and it did, but I’ve already told you that unlikely things happen, and there’s nothing as chancy as a battle. At any rate, Yasuko won’t be waking up for hours, so give Akane a call, let her know why her lover isn’t calling on schedule. And pass my congratulations to our two healers for me, I can always repeat it when I get back to Tokyo in a few days.”

Mercury agreed, and after a quick exchange of goodbyes Setsuna lay back on her bed for a time, watching the room lightening as dawn arrived, reassuring herself that all of her loved ones had gotten through the gauntlet whole once again. Finally, deciding that she wasn’t going to get any sleep before she had to get up, she rose and headed for the shower. If she couldn’t sleep, she could review her offer — the better to lure another budding computer specialist to Japan, where he could be safely steered away from speculation about the possibility of transistors by different research assignments and large bundles of yen. It was a good thing Ranma had remembered she was Yasuko when she had, if she had been much later it would have been too late.


	31. Reconciliations, sort of ...

Ranma stood — or rather paced — on the platform of the railway station. She knew she was making things difficult for her ostensible bodyguards, forcing them to constantly look over fresh territory and people all around her, but she couldn’t help it. After two wasted weeks alone here in Tokyo, her Akane was coming home! She was so excited that she wasn’t even paying attention to the strange men around her.

_Not_ wasted _, Ranma. You saved Satoru’s life — that’s worth a lot._ And it _was_ worth a lot. Waking up from the healing trance in a hospital bed next to a whole, healthy little boy whose life she’d saved had been like nothing she’d ever experienced in her life. And while it turned out that both of Satoru’s parents had been at the park — and among the dead — his mother’s sister had been located and was in the room. The overwhelming flood of love-charged joy and grief she’d radiated when her nephew woke up a few minutes later, completely healed, had been enough to knock Ranma right out of her center.

Still, while Ranma had been happy to accept an incredibly grateful family’s offer to become Satoru’s unofficial godmother when she’d asked if she could see the boy occasionally, the shared healing trance that was all she could manage so far was useless in battlefield conditions. She’d have to leave any on-the-spot healing to Hotaru and Big Sis. _So you’ll just hafta study harder and be ready next time. The lifedancers did it, so you can, too, somehow._

She’d so distracted herself with her thoughts of her successful failure that she hadn’t noticed the sound of the train until it came around the bend, slowing as it approached the station. As it rumbled to a stop and the doors slid open, Ranma’s eyes were scanning the windows, looking for a glimpse of familiar short, dark hair. Finally, she saw the former Tendo stepping onto the platform and scanning the crowd a few cars away, followed by Xian Pu and Mu Tse.

Taking a deep breath, the redhead sauntered up to the trio. “Hey Tomboy, welcome home,” she said.

Akane whipped around. “Ranma!” she shouted as she pulled her lover into a solid hug, Ranma’s own arms rising to circle her, the two oblivious to the sidelong glances from the people around them. After a moment, Akane let go and stepped back. “Hey, Idiot, it’s good to be back,” she said.

Behind her, Mu Tse and Xian Pu exchanged smiles. “They hide it so well, don’t they?” Mu Tse commented idly, and Xian Pu snorted a laugh.

“Right, like _you_ two are any better, now that you’ve dropped the act,” Akane groused, mock-glaring at her friends (she absolutely refused to think of them as bodyguards), and Ranma joined in the laughter even as she nodded approvingly internally — through the entire meeting she hadn’t picked up a hint of emotion in the ki Akane radiated, her lover’s control of her center had been rock-solid in spite of her obvious happiness to be back. After holding the glare a moment longer Akane also joined in. So, where are Hotaru and Usa? I thought they’d be here.”

After Ranma fought the laughter down to chuckles (not giggles, never giggles), she replied, “They said something ‘bout not wanting ta risk diabetes by being around when you got here.” Then as Akane glared at her again, this time with some heat in it, she hastily added, “Actually, they and Big Sis wanted to come, but it would’a meant adding another car. They’re waitin’ for us at the gatherin’ point, come on.”

The group headed for the parking lot, and was soon on their way. Beside Akane in the furthest back seat of the van, a suddenly nervous Ranma watched the traffic out the window for a few minutes, before taking a deep breath and turning to look at her lover. She hesitated uncertainly for a moment, then grinned at a suddenly concerned Akane, the cocky “I can do anything” one that had used to get the raven-haired girl’s blood boiling. “I learned a new trick last week,” Ranma said. “Want me show to you?”

Akane’s concern vanished. “Now?” she asked suspiciously, mindful of some of the pranks Ranma had pulled from time to time (to prove she was really all right even when she wasn’t, Akane had thought — that had kept her from losing her temper a few times).

“Yup,” Ranma replied, holding out a hand, and Akane slowly reached out to grip it. Ranma closed her eyes, remembering again the emergency room a week before, the terrified and dying boy, and how she had calmed him. Letting her emotions settle against the still core at her heart, she again formed the “twisted cord” of her ki and emotions mixed but separate, and let it cross between them through their held hands and spread through Akane’s body, merging with her ki.

Akane had been watching Ranma through narrowed eyes, and now those eyes widened in shock as she felt the intense joyful love mixed with the clear ki of her lover’s calm center wash through her. “Ranma, what ... what was ... how — ?” she gasped out.

Ranma smiled again, this time without the cockiness of before. “That was how I calmed the kid long enough ta heal him, thanks ta memories a’ what ya all did fer me. Akane, I know I’m not really good with words, but ... I’m _really_ glad you’re back.”

Akane resolved to have Ranma teach her how to do that at the first opportunity, but now ... without letting go of Ranma’s hand, she reached up her other hand to cup the back of Ranma’s head and pull the redhead towards her, her eager lips seeking those of her lover.

In the van’s middle seat, after a few moments the two Amazons that had been listening in glanced over their shoulders at their princess and princess’s consort, then grinned at each other.

“So, do you think they’ll demand a room as soon as we get there?” Mu Tse whispered.

After a moment’s thought Xian Pu shook her head. “No, Ranma’s smarter and more responsible than that — she’d either have the constant distraction of the time limit hanging over them or make us push back the time for the debriefing, and she won’t want either. She’ll wait. But don’t expect them to stick around much for the pre-battle get-togethers.” Then remembering a movie she’d seen in her exploration of Western culture, she added, “There isn’t going to be a ‘touch of Harry in the night’ from _this_ pair.”

Mu Tse chuckled his agreement, then brightened. “We aren’t going to be leading any warriors tomorrow, so why don’t we follow our princess’s example?”

Xian Pu smiled broadly at the suggestion. “Sounds good to me.”

/oOo\

Ukyo hugged herself as she glanced around the large room before she turned back to the apartment building window to stare down at the street, ignoring the park across the way where the next day’s battle was going to take place. Mostly, she was watching for the arrival of the van bringing Ranma from picking up Akane. But partly, it was to ignore the room’s other occupants.

While the three strange women sitting at the large table in the middle of the room that the chef assumed to be Amazons were outwardly relaxed, as were Sailors Moon, Saturn and Chibi-Moon, the same couldn’t be said of the rest of the Senshi, or anyone else that had arrived for that matter.

In one corner on the other side of the table, a tense Soun was standing beside Hinako-sensei, the former teacher in her child form clutching at one of Soun’s solidly muscled legs with one arm while with her other hand she was holding open the flap of an elastic belt-pouch to show a bemused Saturn all the coins she’d brought for the next day’s fight, Chibi-Moon and Moon grinning as they looked over Saturn’s shoulder.

In the other corner across the table, Dr. Tofu was standing and quietly arguing with an unusually assertive Kasumi. Ukyo idly wondered what the two would be arguing about (or what could be important enough to get Kasumi to argue about it), but her curiosity didn’t extend to getting close enough to eavesdrop, even if she could without being noticed by the pair. Getting that close would mean circling the table one way to pass a pacing Tatewaki, the obsessed Kuno dressed in the full armor of a samurai with both katana and wakizashi at his waist, or going the other way to pass a Genma standing with his back to the wall and his arms across his chest as he glared at the Amazons at the table. Neither appealed to the spatula-wielding martial artist, even if — she glanced to one side and smiled fondly at the stunningly cute apparently-a-girl standing silently at her side, Konatsu dressed in her loose red and white battle uniform with a wakizashi at her belt — she would have all the backup she’d need in either direction even if the rest of the Senshi except Pluto, sitting at the table and mostly glaring at Genma (Venus was glaring at Soun) didn’t intervene.

For a moment, Ukyo thought back over the past month since her former fiancé’s visit. After that wakeup call she had pulled herself back together, pushing her cooking back to its previous level of excellence even as she’d taken on a crash training regimen that had had her crying herself to sleep from the pain more than once and so stiff she could barely rise in the morning a lot more often than that. She’d accomplished both. Her restaurant clientage had skyrocketed after word spread throughout the district that Vanguard and two Senshi had served a lunch, and if it had dropped off after awhile when such exalted personages hadn’t put in a repeat performance, it hadn’t fallen back into the dumps that her depression had caused. And thanks to the brutal training, her skills were back up to par and her endurance, if not where it should be, was much improved.

And through it all, Konatsu had been at her side, giving massages on the mornings that she was too stiff to move, pacing her in her endurance training, critiquing her form when running through katas and sparring with her, gently poking at her (figuratively, of course) whenever thoughts of the future that now would never happen — never would have, if she’d been honest with herself — had returned to haunt her. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that, though she had lost a fiancé, she’d gained _two_ true friends instead of just one, and now she gave the crossdresser beside her (as always) a grateful smile.

Konatsu shyly smiled back, eyes shifting to the side as he blushed. Suddenly his eyes widened as they fixed on something behind her.

“So, are you ready?”

Ukyo whirled around, hand reaching for the handle of her battle spatula, then relaxed at the sight of Sailor Pluto stepping back and raising her hands, clutching a rolled-up paper. “Don’t _do_ that, Sugar!” the chef exclaimed as she shoved her half-drawn weapon back into its sheath.

“Right, sorry, it won’t happen again,” a slightly pale Pluto agreed. “My usual target for that is Moon — she’s so cute when she screams and jumps away.” Grinning at Ukyo’s startled laugh as from her corner Moon huffed and pointedly turned back to Chibi-Hinako, Pluto continued, “But I should know better than to do that to a martial artist, even one as well-trained as you.

“So, are you ready?”

Ukyo nodded. “Yes, I am. Konatsu’s been helping me train hard to get out of the hole I dug for myself, I’m back on top.”

“Good.” Pluto nodded, then offered Ukyo the roll of paper. “Here, I wanted to give you this before we started the briefing.”

Ukyo accepted what turned out to be a roll of parchment and unrolled it. She started to read, eyes growing wider with each line as Konatsu peeked over her shoulder. Finishing, Ukyo raised her head to stare at Pluto. “Is this for _real_?” she demanded. “It’s really ... really ... ?”

“Really a request for your father to give up his vendetta against the Saotomes and accept you back into the fold as a girl, personally signed by the Emperor? Yes, it is,” Pluto said coolly. Then, as Ukyo continued to stare at the emerald-haired woman, she added, “You’re putting your life on the line here, and while Ranma will always count you as one of her best friends, I’m afraid she’s going to be too busy to really visit all that often. I thought the least we could do was help patch things up with your father. Do you think this will do the job?”

Ukyo’s eyes dropped to stare again at the Emperor’s personal signature. “Yes, this should do the job ... thank you,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome.” Pluto looked up as Xian Pu and Mu Tse walked through the door, followed by Ranma and Akane with another two Amazons behind that peeled off to take up stations on each side of the doorway.

/\

Ranma looked around as she and Akane stepped into the room. It looked like they were the last to arrive, so ... then her big sister’s wave motioning them over caught her eye, just as the two had planned that morning at the Outers’ home when she’d spent time with her mother before reviewing the battle plan with Moon, Pluto and Elder Ku Lon. Turning, Ranma started toward the little group, catching her lover’s elbow when Akane balked at the sight of her father. “Come on, Akane, yer the one always telling me I need ta learn some manners, be polite,” the redhead murmured.

“But that’s fath — Soun!” Akane hissed.

“Yeah, an’ he’s gonna be puttin’ his life on the line tomorrow, just like the rest of us, an’ he’ll fight better if he has at least some hope a’ gettin’ back together with you,” Ranma replied, tugging on Akane’s elbow.

After a moment’s further hesitation, Akane reluctantly walked forward, feeling blind. She’d deliberately dropped out of her center before entering the room — feeling the emotions of a room with Soun, Genma, and Kuno in it didn’t appeal to her — but now she was wondering if that had been wise. Ignoring her father, she focused on the woman/child still clutching Soun’s leg. The child was obviously nervous, but looked good — none of the tired eyes and too-slim body that Ranma had described after her visit. Moon’s and later Chibi-Moon’s visits (and quiet help) seemed to have served Hinako well.

Dropping to one knee, Akane forced a smile. “Hello, Hinako-sensei, it’s been awhile. Ranma told me you quit your job. Are you enjoying getting away from the principal?”

“Oh, yes!” the little girl enthused. “I had to keep some coins in my hand whenever he was around, or he would have those clippers out and try for my hair. I blasted him so much.” Then she added with a cutely stern look, “You aren’t going to make Soun cry, are you? He cries too much about you already.” The stern look vanished as the child’s eyes went watery. “Please?”

Akane froze, looking away. _Oh, crap, what do I say to_ that _?_ she thought despairingly, fighting to control her roiling anger as she remembered that final scene at ho — at the dojo on The Day, when the man she should have been able to trust as much as any in the world had betrayed her to side with his scumbag of a friend.

Then she made the mistake at looking back down at wide eyes, with two tears rolling down tiny cheeks, and the knowledge that the “child” was actually a woman some years older than her was completely useless as her heart melted. “Okay, I’ll be nice,” she grumbled.

Hinako perked up instantly, smiling brightly. “Yay!” she shouted, letting go of Soun’s leg to throw her arms around her still-kneeling former student. Above the two, a pigtailed redhead and long-braided blonde exchanged tiny self-satisfied nods.

Akane rose to her feet, picking up Hinako when the child refused to let go of her, and nodded to her father. “Tendo-san,” she said coldly, then sighed as his face clouded up with the all-too-familiar signs of coming tears and Hinako’s arms tightened around her. “Okay, okay ... Father,” she muttered ungraciously, though she managed to keep the frost out of her voice.

“Akane,” Soun replied. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “When I said what I did those months ago, uniting the schools wasn’t my primary concern — rather, it was you and Ranma. What the two of you are doing just isn’t _right_.” He dropped his gaze to stare at the floor, oblivious to Akane’s shock. Even as she opened her mouth to shout out her disagreement, he continued, “But when you removed yourself from the family you also removed any right I had to have a say in how you live your life, and when I did have that right I was too caught up with living in the past to pay the attention I should have to my daughters. I’m sorry. The Tendo dojo may no longer be your home, but ... could you visit, from time to time?”

Akane simply stood there, mouth open, mind racing in circles. As the silence stretched, Soun’s shoulders slumped and he began to turn away just as Akane felt Hinako’s arms tighten around her. “Will Ranma be welcome, too?” she finally asked, voice harsh.

Soun nodded without turning back. “Yes, of course.”

“All right, so long as Ranma can come I’ll stop by occasionally,” Akane ground out. “But for now, I think we have more important things to talk about.”

“Yes, we do,” Pluto said from directly behind them. They turned to find the Senshi of Time holding a roll of paper almost as tall as she was in one hand, and a lumpy bag in the other. “Tofu-san, if you’ll help me roll the map out on the table, and Kasumi-san, if you’ll put one of these crystals on each corner, and if everyone will gather around the table, we’ll get started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Current planning is that this is going to be Ukyo's last hurrah, so I thought I'd wrap up her situation — and I can't think of anything more likely to get through her father's rock-headed stubborn vendetta than a personal appeal from the Emperor.
> 
> Oh, and that new trick of Ranma's? It's going to have more uses than just letting your lover know how much you love him or her, but that's certainly a good place to start.


	32. Battle's Eve

The large map unrolled, everyone gathered around (Akane passing chibi-Hinako off to Soun) as Kasumi circled the table and weighed down each corner before handing the bag back to Pluto and rejoining her stiff husband. The map turned out to be a detailed layout of the park and the streets surrounding it, down to the low hummocks and individual trees and benches ... and a circle of ten octagonal shapes with a tiny elongated oval in the center of the circle. Pluto handed the bag to Ranma.

Ranma took a deep breath, and glanced around, her eyes pausing for a moment on the three Amazon women. “The battlefield, people,” she said unnecessarily, “the anchors that need ta be destroyed, surrounding the gate that the bad guys will be comin’ through. And here,” she continued, reaching into the bag to pull out a handful of translucent red and white crystals much smaller than the ones on the map’s corners, “are where the invaders will be after they appear an’ spread out.” She quickly laid out the white crystals in a circle around the anchors about two-thirds of the distance from the central gate to the streets that ran along the park’s edges, with a crystal in the center by the gate. “This spot here,” she continued, touching the central crystal, “is their command post and a reserve.”

Picking up the red crystals she’d put to the side while laying out the enemy positions, Ranma placed them on buildings along an edge of the park that faced one of the flat sides of the oval gate, leaving the building in the center empty. “These buildings are where the Amazons are already waiting. The people that live there have been evacuated slowly and replaced by the Amazons over the past week, so as not ta be noticeable, and so have those _here_.” — She tapped the empty building in the middle. — “Our little trick worked, and the enemy will still be coming in when Pluto thought they would.”

Taking two more of the red crystals and placing them in a building on the opposite side of the park, she continued, “Right now we’re in _this_ building here, and it’s from here that the Senshi and the Neriman people will be kickin’ off the fight.”

“We’ll be in two groups: Me an’ Akane, Sailors Saturn and Chibi-Moon, Ukyo an’ Konatsu, Shampoo an’ Mousse in the first; and Sailors Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Endymion, Saotome-san, Soun-kun an’ Hinako-kun in the second. Pluto will be watchin’ the start of the battle from somewhere else, ta let the soldiers of the JSDF know when it’s time fer them to join in. Once she does that, she’ll join the second group.”

“But what of me?” Kuno demanded. “Surely I cannot be assigned any place on the battlefield other than at the side of my princess and her handmaiden!”

_Perhaps a maid, but far from a maiden,_ Pluto thought wryly in a version of English centuries gone, remembering a few scenes she’d caught seconds of in the Time Gate before she was able to shift away. “Of course not,” she agreed blandly, speaking up as she turned to face the self-labeled samurai, ignoring the looks of betrayal being sent her way by Ranma and Akane. “But in this first assault, speed is of the essence and they must not be held back to your pace. You will need to join one of the Amazon contingents and fight your way through to them — no small task, but one well within your capabilities.”

As Kuno straightened, swelling with pride at the praise from the Lady Pluto of ancient history, the emerald-haired Senshi nodded to Ranma. Ranma glared at her briefly, then shrugged and reached down to slide the two crystals representing the Senshi and Nerimans off of the building, across the street, through the line of white crystals and into the middle of the map into contact with the white crystal there, then one to the far right of the circle of anchors and the other to the portal. “The Senshi and Neriman groups will break through the line, taking care a’ the reserve — about fifty men — and command post. Then the Senshi will start on this edge of the circle and work their way back the way we came, with Mercury, Mars, Venus an’ Moon handling destroying the anchors, an’ Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Saotome-san, Soun-kun and Hinako-kun providing protection.” Looking up at Genma and Soun, she added, “Hinako-kun isn’t trained for hand to hand like the Amazons and other Nerimans and she can’t heal like the Senshi, so the two of you are ta stick ta her at all times — keeping her safe is yer first job.”

“Of course, he will, Soun loves me!” Hinako announced brightly from where she stood beside her lover with his arm around her, before going back to playing with the white crystal she’d swiped from the map even as Soun’s arm tightened slightly. Genma glanced over at the pair and rolled his eyes, grimacing, but nodded.

Ranma stared hard at Genma for a long moment, then glanced over at Akane, then at Xian Pu and Mu Tse bracketing them. “The second group will head for the portal. After the guards are dealt with I’ll charge into the portal — the entrance will be on the side facing away from us, this side is tougher than anything we, or they, can do to it — to keep the rest of the enemy army bottled up, while Saturn will blow a hole through the enemy circle beyond. Saturn, aim at this building,” — she tapped the empty building between the ones with red crystals representing the Amazons — “an’ don’t worry about hurtin’ innocents, as I said it’s empty. After that, you guys will concentrate on keeping the enemy from retaking the portal and sending in people to attack me from behind.”

Turning her attention to the three Amazons, Ranma said, “Ren Sha, Shu Li, Ying Ying, the destruction of that building will be your signal ta start yer attack. Shu Li, yer group, along with Kuno, will charge through the hole that Saturn’s opened and head straight for the middle, past the portal — your job is to keep the soldiers on the other side of the park away from us at the portal an’ the Senshi as they destroy the anchors. Ren-sha, your group is to widen the gap and roll up the right flank. Ying Ying, you do the same on the left. Shu Li, Make sure you take Kuno with you when you return to your post, we don’t want people makin’ any more trips in an’ out a’ the apartments than they hafta.”

Shu-li nodded, eyeing Kuno speculatively. “Gladly, the girls will be happy to see him,” she said, a slight grin on her face.

The rest of the Amazons chuckled at the confused expression on Kuno’s face (and the faces of most of the Nerimans and Senshi, though Genma looked envious), before Ranma resumed the debriefing. “Uhh ... right. Once I have the portal plugged and Saturn’s opened the hole, Pluto lets the JSDF soldiers know it’s time fer them ta move in. They’re far enough back ta be outside the area the enemy will be spying out, however he does it, but have armored personnel carriers to bring them to the battle. Pluto says the enemy’s protective field shuts down engines as well as protects against projectile weapons, so we can’t use the APCs ta run over enemy formations, but they’ll at least get the soldiers here in a hurry. Once here, they’ll line up an’ attack the enemy soldiers on the side of the park that we an’ the Senshi attacked through, across from the Amazons.

“Between the Amazons on one side, the JSDF on the other, the Senshi and Nerimans and more Amazons in the center, we should be able to wrap things up and destroy the anchors long before the bad guys can bring up anything that can take me out an’ let them get more men through the portal. When the Senshi are ready ta destroy the last one, Akane’s come inta the portal ta let me know it’s time ta get out.

“So, any questions?”

Kasumi raised her hand from beside her stone-faced husband. “Yes, where will Tofu and I be stationed?”

The Nerimans stiffened. “You, Kasumi?” Akane squeaked. “You aren’t a martial artist, how can you help?”

“Over the past month I’ve been studying battlefield medicine,” Kasumi replied serenely. “I may not be able to fight, but I can help save lives.”

Akane opened her mouth to protest as her oldest sister looked between her and Ranma, only to pause when her lover gripped her elbow. “Her decision, not ours, or even her husband’s, looks like,” the redhead quickly whispered in her ear. “If she’s set on joinin’ even with a kid on the way, we aren’t gonna change her mind.” Akane considered briefly in the silence of the room, then relaxed and reluctantly nodded to her sister. Ranma said more loudly, “You an’ Tofu’ll be comin’ in behind the Amazons with the other medics, that’s probably where most a’ the wounded will be before our soldiers show up.” _An’_ _where you’ll be the safest._ Kasumi didn’t say a word, but her worried expression changed into a relieved smile even as her husband’s shoulders slumped.

Ranma gazed sympathetically at her sort-of brother-in-law — at least _her_ lover was a skilled fighter, flanked by experienced warriors even if she was going to be in the thick of the fighting instead of behind it. Finally, the redhead asked, “Any other questions?”

When nobody answered, she sighed with relief. “Okay, I guess we’re done here. The bad guys will be poppin’ in about first light, so everybody make sure you — an’ yer people,” she added, nodding to the three Amazons, “are up an’ ready.

“An’ Saotome-san,” she continued, glaring at her father, “don’t get drunk, an’ don’t harass any a’ the women if ya wanna be in the fight and get yer lifetime drinkin’ money — and any damage ya do here is comin’ out ‘a yer first payments ‘till it’s paid for.”

Genma glared back. “As if I’d want any of those man-hating bitches,” he growled, then turned and strode from the room.

Beside Ranma, Xian Pu chuckled. “Doesn’t sound like he enjoyed the last few weeks of training,” she mused, and glanced over at Shu Li. “Jen Ni’s reports were rather terse: ‘I’m still alive and unharmed, and Genma’s an asshole’, basically. Did she have anything to say when she got back?”

“Only that those were some of the most unpleasant weeks in her life, and you owe her a _major_ favor for dumping the job on her,” Shu Li replied with a laugh. She strolled around to latch onto Kuno’s arm, ignoring the way the kendoist stiffened at the self-assumed familiarity. “Come on, stud, since you’re going to be going straight up the middle, you’re with my battle group. Let’s go.”

“Unhand me, woman!” Kuno snarled, trying unsuccessfully to shake her off. “I must present myself to my princess!”

Shu Li looked over at Ranma and Akane. The two girls glanced at each other, Ranma rolling her eyes (and suppressing the urge to flinch) before she noticed the worry in her lover’s eyes. Sobering, she gave Akane a reassuring smile, took a deep breath, then nodded to Shu Li.

Shrugging, Shu Li let go of Kuno’s arm. “Okay, but make it quick,” she said to Kuno’s back as he strode around the table.

Ranma turned stiffly and Akane stepped around to her side, Pluto stepping back to disassociate herself. Xian Pu and Mu Tse stepped to the side where they would have a clear shot at Kuno, ready for anything — anything, that is, but Kuno falling to his knees and abasing himself at Ranma’s feet.

As everyone but Pluto stared in shock, Kuno spoke, voice calm. “Your Highness, the Elder Cologne told me of the history we Japanese share with the Amazons, and who you have remembered yourself to be. My attempted advances on your person and failure to be there when you needed me are a blot on my honor that cannot be wiped away. I am needed for this battle, but once victory is ours I ask permission to commit seppuku.” Falling silent, he waited in the sudden ringing silence.

For long minutes Ranma stared at the back of the kendoist waiting patiently for her word at her feet, mind whirling. Finally, she forced herself into a semblance of coherence and sought her center. The result was not what she had expected. In the midst of the shock radiating from everyone around her she could sense, not the twisted, insane need to possess she had expected thanks to past experience, but a thread of pure serenity coming from her long-time stalker. He was serious.

And so was someone else. “Akane, center!” she hissed just as the raven-haired girl at her side was opening her mouth for what, from what Ranma was picking up, was going to be an epic rant.

Startled, Akane stared at her for a moment, the closed her eyes and took a deep breath as the burning anger faded from her ki. A moment later her eyes flew open in shock. “Whoa!” she breathed softly, staring at the kendoist — the samurai — at their feet.

For just a moment Ranma considered a future with no delusional, poetry-spewing fool haunting her, before firmly (and easily) rejecting the temptation. _No, it’s not like he chased ya down after The Day, an’_ _he could have easy enough if he’d moved fast after Nabiki’s visit. Puu’s right,_ he _, at least, is safe._ “Get up, Kuno-san — Tatewaki-kun,” she said in a tightly controlled voice. Akane wasn’t the only one that had less than pleasant memories thanks to the older boy. The redhead wondered fleetingly if her lover had ever had any dreams like she had, of a looming Kuno figure, a terrifying future; she’d never asked. “Forget it, ya aren’t killin’ yerself. Ya weren’t much fun ta be around, but ya weren’t like the Freak, either.” _Much. Maybe._ “An’ ya weren’t me or Akane’s bodyguard, what happened had nothin’ ta do with you. Just ... fight as good as ya can here an’ get on with yer life.” _Maybe there’s actually a girl out there as nuts as he is that would make him happy — maybe Mom might know one?_ she thought half-whimsically, half-seriously as the samurai rose to his feet.

“You are truly forgiving, far beyond what this unworthy soul deserves, Your Highness,” the samurai said softly. “And tomorrow I shall honor that generosity with my skill, my body, and if need be my life.” He bowed deeply, and without waiting for a response strode to and through the door that Shu Li had been guiding him toward. The three Amazons followed, Shu Li looking speculatively at the samurai’s back.

“Well, _that_ was ... interesting,” Xian Pu mused as she and Mu Tse stepped back to their places at the sides of princess and consort. “And it looks like it gave Shu Li ideas — like maybe not sharing, this time. I wonder if Kuno’ll turn out to be a Lancelot or a Galahad? My money’s on the first.”

“No bet,” Mu Tse replied. “He’s delusional, but not a complete idiot.”

“What are you two talking about?” Akane demanded as she shook off the shock of the last few minutes.

“An old Amazon tradition,” Pluto explained as she walked around the group and waved everyone, Nerimans and Senshi all, toward the door. “If possible, the afternoon before a battle, once all the usual final equipment checks are completed, the warriors will gather with the men and spend a few hours reminiscing about their shared lives. Then, once evening arrives, most of the ones already married or in a relationship — or perhaps thinking about starting one — will slip away to celebrate life in the most ancient way known to man. The rest will stay together and do the same.”

Ranma and Akane exchanged confused glances, but before they could ask Kasumi gasped, hands flying up to cover her mouth, framed by fiercely blushing cheeks. “Oh, my! You don’t mean an ... an orgy?”

“Of course. Children conceived on such nights are considered a special blessing — the triumph of life over death,” Pluto replied, lips quivering for a moment before they settled into her usual distant expression. Glancing at the oldest Tendo sister out of the corner of an eye, she added slyly, “You mean you and Ono-san aren’t planning just that — the sex part, at least? Alone, of course.”

Kasumi’s blush actually intensified. “Uh ... well ... y-yes, we are....” she stammered.

“So are most of the rest of us,” Pluto said, then glanced around. “Well, maybe not Ukyo-kun, Konatsu-kun, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter, and _definitely_ not Chibi-Moon and Saturn.” She mock-glared at the last two named. Chibi-Moon stuck her tongue out at her while Saturn laughed softly even as she blushed. “But the rest of you, including Moon once her husband gets off work ... what about you, Ranma, Akane?”

Ranma blushed. “Well, Mom’s downstairs with Nabiki waitin’ for us — didn’t want Saotome-san ta know where she is, now that he’s been told about the divorce proceedings. An’ I wanna spar with Akane, see how she’s done over the last couple’a weeks.”

“And after that ... ?”

“Well ... yeah....”

“And what about you?” Uranus asked, the blonde Senshi glancing slyly at Pluto. “Are you going to be ... joining us?”

“Uranus!” Neptune protested, lightly smacking her lover on the back of her head.

“It seems as if I’m not welcome, so no, I’m not,” Pluto replied haughtily, pointedly ignoring the chuckles around her. “Besides, I unfortunately have some business in China to look into that can’t wait even for a prospective invasion. I won’t be seeing any of you until tomorrow.” And with that, she was gone.

/\

Ukyo looked around as the group’s chuckles died away after Pluto’s disappearance and they continued toward the door. Ranma she counted a friend, but the rest ... other than Konatsu, they were at best distant acquaintances, at worst former enemies. But most were complete strangers, and strangers with shared secrets, and she had a sudden vision of the stilted silence as they tried to find something to talk about with her there. _Besides, what are you going to talk about with Ranma, how much you enjoyed pissing off Akane when you were trying to keep them apart? Pluto was right — he ... she has her own life now, a life you don’t fit into. And neither does Konatsu._

But Konatsu fit in very well in _her_ life — had quietly, unobtrusively pushed his way in while she had blindly focused everything on Ranma, and the chef suddenly realized that after the past month, she could no longer imagine a life without the crossdresser as a part of it. Coming to a sudden decision, she called out, “Ranma! Why don’t Konatsu and I skip the schmoozing and head straight to my room? We have some things we need to talk about.”

Konatsu’s head whipped around as he stared at her in confusion. “We do?”

“Yeah, Sugar, we do.”

/oOo\

Hours later, a tired, angry, guilty and frustrated Pluto _stepped_ in front of the Time Gates, allowing her calm, distant expression to twist into a snarl as soon as she was alone. What a _fucking_ waste of time her afternoon had been — she was no closer to finding a way around the blank spot in the Himalayas. She could pinpoint the very moment that the Time Gates ceased to be able to focus on it, but it was _huge_ , and she had no idea where in that vastness her enemy was hiding. And while the Jade Emperor crouching in his (presumably) opulent hole probably couldn’t stop the future she saw coming, he would make the cost of getting there a lot bloodier. Unfortunately, so far she’d found no way to get to him before then, and had the dead bodies of would-be traitors to the Jade Emperor to prove it ... and the bodies of innocents caught in the crossfire.

Closing her eyes and taking deep breaths, the Senshi of Time forced herself to relax muscle by muscle. “Okay, _Nimue_ , time to just let this one go,” she murmured to herself. “No more attempts to intervene until you have a location and a plan that’s better than a long shot. So, let’s see how everyone else is enjoying the evening, shall we?”

Focusing her will on the Time Gates, she smiled as the flickering images vanished to be replaced by the image of the common room Ranma had chosen for the after-briefing get-together. As she’d expected, considering the hour: Nabiki-kun, Nodoka, Usa, Hotaru, Ami, Rei, Makoto, all laughing at some story ... but no Ukyo or Konatsu. Banishing the view, she brought up the room where she knew Ukyo would be staying that night ... and a second later banished it. _So, a happy ending for the faithful servant, and Ukyo’s finally moving on. I’ll have to remember to look ahead for a beautiful day for their wedding._

She briefly considered checking on the others no longer with the main group, but quickly rejected the idea. This early in the evening they’d be the same as Ukyo and Konatsu, or taking a short rest between bouts. Either way, she knew where they were without bothering to check.

Then she considered joining those still together, but soon rejected that, as well. While things in China had gone wrong even faster than she’d anticipated, leaving her with some unexpected free time, she didn’t really feel in the mood for companionship. _Or at least,_ that _kind of companionship, it has been s few months since I visited Yosho...._ _Right._

Decision made, she quickly checked to make sure the Confederacy wouldn’t jump the gun — no, the chance of them arriving before the morning’s appointed hour was infinitesimal. So, that meant she could — and her thoughts stumbled to a halt as she brought up the image of Douglas MacKenzie’s room at the palace at the Amazons’ new village of Nikko, to find it empty. _Okay, check the palace dojo, scan back to the last time he was there, follow him forward to the present —_ and Pluto’s eyebrows rose as she watched the fast-scrolling image.

/\

Sergeant Douglas MacKenzie, US Marine Corp and temporary sensei for the Princess Yasuko and her consort Akane, looked up from where he lay on his bed in his temporary quarters as he suddenly sensed the presence of someone else in room to find the faceless but familiarly-shaped, fuku-clad form of his family’s generations-long friend standing by the door. Set — sorry, Pluto,” he greeted her. “What are you doing here?”

“What, I can’t visit an old friend?” the emerald-haired woman asked, as the fuku vanished to be replaced by a stylish but conservative skirt and business suit and her face came into focus.

“Setsuna, we aren’t exactly ‘old friends’,” MacKenzie replied, sitting up on the bed and waving toward the chair by the room’s desk. “Before you asked for my help training the kids, I hadn’t seen you since I was a kid myself, and before that ... well, I was your typical horny teenage boy and you were the family’s impossible patron.”

“You didn’t let that keep you from accepting my offer, that night before boot camp,” Setsuna said with a slight smirk.

“Like I said, typical horny teenage boy,” MacKenzie riposted, a fond grin spreading across his face at the memory.

“Yes, well, speaking of hormones, you aren’t all _that_ much older. I’m surprised you aren’t with the Amazons you’re going to be joining for the battle tomorrow.”

MacKenzie shrugged. “There isn’t an individual woman down there that I really want to be with, and I’ve found that I don’t really have a taste for orgies.”

“No, I imagine Xian Pu’s with Mu Tse right now,” Setsuna said teasingly, then sobered even as the blonde American blushed. “Douglas, I know you can’t be with the one you love, but do you think this time you can make an exception on not loving the one you’re with?”

MacKenzie stilled, blush fading. “You?”

Setsuna nodded. “Me.”

“Why? I asked around — discreetly, I assure you — after I got home from boot camp, and found out that while you might pick the occasional lucky guy for a night’s fun it was never more than once.”

“Because ...” Setsuna’s voice trailed away as her eyes dropped to the floor. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Kami, this is hard! I’ve been the inscrutable fount of all wisdom and knowledge too long. Because ... there’s a battle tomorrow, and I _hate_ battles, because of how chancy they can be, how easily they can go wrong, and ... and I don’t want to be alone, tonight.”

Staring at the vulnerable, frightened woman that had suddenly replaced his family’s generations-long legend, MacKenzie finally rose to his feet and walked over to stand in front of her. Reaching up, he cupped her chin and lifted her head till her eyes met his. “I would be honored to help you forget, for awhile,” he whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure that because of the importance of the stakes at the level she plays, what really scares Pluto isn't pain or death, it's failure.
> 
> And in the interest of full disclosure, I basically lifted the "ancient Amazon tradition" from the Go-Backs in Elfquest Book 4. I figured it made sense as a way for a people that can lose a significant number of women in a bad war (since they're mostly the ones doing the fighting, not exactly a pro-survival trait) to push up the birthrate.


	33. Opening Moves

Vanguard glanced up at the doorway as Moon and Endymion walked into the common room where the redhead had held the previous afternoon’s briefing. Good, that was almost the last, and they looked ... and moved ... like they’d actually spent most of the night sleeping. For that matter, they moved as if they didn’t have a care in the world. It had to be an act, of course, though the reawakened princess couldn’t say for certain — she’d quickly dropped out of her center as each addition to their little group had ramped up the tension. She imagined Akane had, as well.

For a moment, she looked over at her lover and two youngest Senshi, the new Three Musketeers. Akane was an even better fit now, with the surprise Usa and Hotaru had given her during the previous evening’s get-together, after she and Ranma had had a final spar — her own costume. So now she was dressed in the same uniform as Vanguard, with the colors mixed a bit: red leotard; white skirt and sleeveless jacket; and blue boots, gloves, headband, bicycle pants, and bow on her butt. Akane had been incredibly happy with Ranma’s assessment of her progress (and Vanguard was just happy that she’d been centered at that point, so that her lover couldn’t pick up just how reluctant she’d been to make that assessment), in tears over the costume when Hotaru and Usa pulled it out, but less than pleased with Ranma’s contribution — a silhouette of a hammer, centered right on her chest. Her new _nom de guerre_ of Hammer hadn’t gone over very well, either, but when Ranma pointed out that she needed a name ... along with a little reminder of her biggest weakness ... she grudgingly agreed to go along with her sensei.

Finally the princess forced her gaze away from her lover. _Come on, Ranma, ya got a job ta do._ She still didn’t know how she’d ended up semi-officially in charge — the Amazons had deferred to her, of course, but Moon and Pluto had quietly stepped back as well. When she’d found out that _she_ was going to be giving the final briefing ... She glanced around the room, gauging the readiness of the others helping themselves to the light Western-style breakfast that her mother ... and Nabiki, of all people ... had brought in (Nabiki doing her best not to roll on the floor laughing when she saw Akane’s costume). For most, that simply meant gauging how rested they were, though in the case of Soun it included looking over the armor he was wearing, making sure it was properly fitted and buckled on.

Finally, the redhead nodded. As promised, her mother had made sure that those that hadn’t paired off to their own rooms in the early evening made it to their own beds at a reasonable hour, and it seemed those that had taken themselves to bed earlier had taken her suggestion to heart. In fact, everyone had arrived but ... “Hey, Puu, where’s Venus?” she asked in a low voice, stepping up beside the oldest of the Senshi where she stood looking out the window at the pre-dawn park (oldest of everybody, for that matter, not that even the much-younger redhead was stupid enough to mention that).

Pluto glanced down at her young friend, an impish grin lighting up her face. “She’ll be here in a few minutes,” she replied, equally softly. “She decided last night to visit the neighbors.”

“Neighbors — the Amazons?” Vanguard hissed.

“Yes.”

“She’s going to be exhausted, what was she thinking?” the redhead moaned, fighting to keep her voice down.

Pluto shrugged. “She wasn’t thinking, really. Eventually she’s going to need to get over that, get back to what she used to be, but not yet. She’ll be all right, if necessary the Elders would have made sure things ended at a reasonable hour.”

The impish smile turning gentle, she added, “Ranma ... Yasuko ... relax. I know Moon and I caught you by surprise when we dumped things on you, but this is the best kind of battle to be in charge of, for your first time — an Alexander kind of battle, all the plans laid out, no way for you to manage things once the fighting starts even if your own job didn’t make that impossible. So now all there is for you to do is to look confident for your people, give the word when it’s time to attack, and then fight like a demon. More than that, what happens, happens.”

Vanguard took a deep breath, and felt a stiffness she’d hardly been aware of vanish away as she exhaled. “Right, I can do that. Thanks, Puu.”

“You’re welcome.” The two turned to the window to watch as dark shapes emerged from the slowly lightening night, Pluto’s arm circling her oldest friend’s daughter to give her a brief hug that had Ranma rolling her eyes — though she didn’t shrug it off. In a few minutes Vanguard would gather everyone around for a quick planning session for their opening attack, but for now the two simply stood, luxuriating in each other’s presence,

/oOo\

“So, Centurion, is the cohort ready?” Marcus Manilius Otho asked as he rejoined his junior officers in what little open space was left in the center of the vanguard, alongside the pillars that marked where the gateway would form. Behind him, the gap in the last circle of soldiers closed.

“Yes, Tribune,” Decimus Sulpicius Pennus replied to the traditional rhetorical question. “Anything new in the last briefing?”

Manilius shook his head. “No, nothing. The worst we should expect in the initial action are the two handfuls of local magical girls, and one knight, described to us before. By the time the authorities can react with what army they have, the beachhead will be solidly established.” Looking around at the other centurions, he asked, “So, any questions come up since our last briefing?” When the three centurions shook their heads, he nodded, unsurprised. This wasn’t their first time — or third — as part of the first legion of a new conquest, even if it was their first time as the vanguard. “Very well, take your places with your centuries.” The centurions saluted, fists to armored chests, and hurried away through the crush.

As Manilius watched them go, he considered the last searching glance Sulpicius had given before seeking his post. The older man had been with him for over half his career, following him up the ranks, so he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that the First Spear had noticed his lack of enthusiasm for the newest campaign. Manilius sighed softly as he looked up at the tall crystalline pillar at the edge of the mass of men that made up his cohort, then turned slowly in place, sweeping his gaze across the other nine pillars, the anchors that represented the continuing expansion of the Confederacy. He was as pious as he had ever been, giving all honor to God and his ancestors. His drive to be of service, to earn the luxury and privileges that he had been born into, had never faltered. But since the suppression of the revolt on Greater Hawaii, his fire to spread the peace and justice of civilization to warring, divided worlds had sunk to guttering embers.

 _No, it hasn’t_ sunk _to guttering embers, it’s been buried under a massive pile of bodies of the innocent, along with Titus Iulius’s crimes. Our_ _‘glorious history’_ _doesn’t look so glorious, after that_ _‘worthy’_ _senator’s orders, does it?_ But whether Manilius’s newfound doubts were well-founded, baseless, or the truth was somewhere in the middle; whether he continued in his military career, shifted to the political arena earlier than he had planned to fight the corruption he had discovered at the heart of the Confederacy, or withdrew to become a hermit on his father’s estates; whatever the future was to bring, he could not fail the men that he commanded, and with the first hint of the sun over the horizon, it was time.

/\

Over eight hours to the west, in the dark of the early night, the massive Plaza of Triumph at the heart of Rome, the largest and greatest city in the history of the world, was abruptly illuminated brighter than noonday as the portal to the Confederacy’s newest frontier flashed into existence, coruscating with every color of the rainbow for long seconds before settling to a soft, steady, glowing pearly gray.

As the light show faded, a cheer loud enough to shake the ground went up from the mass of spectators packing the plaza except for the wide cobblestoned boulevard leading to the portal and filling the buildings and perched in the trees that circled around the grassy sward, a tiny fraction of the City’s tens of millions.

The jubilant cheering cut off as the soldiers filling the boulevard raised their pilum, and the soldiers shouted out their own “Hurrah!” As the echoes of their guttural bellow died, the legion’s commanding legate stretched out his arm with his hand spread open, snapped it closed into a fist, and without another order the front ranks began their march toward the portal, shifting into a two-man column as they went. Another cheer from the spectators roared out to shake the trees as the first two soldiers disappeared into the portal’s gray nothingness.

/oOo\

Vanguard fought to keep her sudden tension from throwing her off her newly-acquired center as the massive flash of light through the window at her back threw her shadow on the inner wall. The light died as quickly as it came, and she whirled in place to stare out through the open window at the early dawn-lit park, and the mass of men now standing shoulder to shoulder in concentric rings within the circle of ten tall, glowing crystalline pillars, exactly where Pluto had said they’d be.

Even as young princess turned to see them, the men started spreading out, outer ring slowly marching forward and breaking up, gaps filling in with men from the ring behind them, and behind that....

“As choreographed as kabuki theater,” the Senshi of the Deeps murmured from the next window.

“Those are Romans!” Mercury exclaimed from beyond Neptune. “Pluto, why didn’t you tell us?”

“No, they _aren’t_ Romans,” Pluto disagreed with a shrug from where she still stood beside the shorter redhead. “I was never able to find the timeline they originate from, but as best I could determine they came about because a medieval Italian city-state decided to return to the old ways and managed to make it work. But it doesn’t really matter, they could be from the Mongol hordes and it wouldn’t change what’s happening now.”

Vanguard ignored the discussion, gaze fixed on the spreading circle of soldiers. “Almost there, focus,” she called out, and the discussion cut off as the men below stopped advancing, the last gaps in the large circle filling in. She shifted her gaze to the center of the park where the circular portal shone, a mass of men standing by it ( _the reserve_ , she thought, remembering the mini-lessons in tactics she’d gotten as she, Pluto, Ku Lon and Colonel Okuda, the officer in charge of the JSDF soldiers, had worked out their plans). To the side was another, smaller group — the command staff.

Returning her attention to the outer circle in front of her, Vanguard waited, ignoring the growing mix of fear, anger, sorrow, hatred, eagerness and regret from around her. The soldiers below were beginning to shift in place a bit, some of them apparently murmuring to each other, relaxing even as they kept their eyes fixed on the building in front of the. ... A split-second’s concentration, and her view went slightly hazy as the translucent eye screen she’d developed after her last less than successful battle materialized. She nodded to her oldest friend, and as Pluto _stepped_ away into empty air, she sprang up to the window sill. “Go!”

/\

Manilius stood in place, hands clasped behind his back, frowning slightly as he skipped from squad circuit to squad circuit, listening to the soft murmur of his soldiers commenting on this newest world as the view from vidcam after vidcam on his soldiers’ helmets flashed up on the screen projected down from the front brim of his crested helmet. He understood why the cohort assigned to establishing the beachhead was always the best in the legion, they would be alone until the first of the legion could arrive through the portal and needed to be able to hold their perimeter to give those reinforcements room. But their solid professionalism meant they all knew that the sheer speed of the first strike would —

He stiffened as the flashing montage froze. One of those frontline soldiers had tapped his override, forcing his vidcam feed onto the screens of Manilius and his staff and locking out the rest, and Manilius gaped for a moment at the people dropping from the second story windows of the building the unmoving soldier was facing — he recognized some of them from his briefings, but there were over twice as many as he’d expected and either some were men beyond the one he was told of, or they were the _ugliest_ magical girls he’d ever seen.

Shaking himself out of his shock, he mentally tripped the key acknowledging the soldier’s feed, the one signaling the soldier that he was free to move, and a third sending a general alert out to every soldier in the cohort. _Forget the numbers, Marcus, what’s important is that they’re here,_ right now _! For the first time, they_ knew _we were coming, and that means it’s a whole new game._

/\

Saturn fought to keep her face calm as she hit the ground outside the apartment building and charged forward, arms and legs pumping as she raced toward the enemy line already firming up into a tower shield wall, her foster parents on one side and her oldest and newest friends on the other. While she had trained for this day, she had hoped it would never come. Of course, if it hadn’t been for Yasuko waking up, this would have been her _last_ day, instead. _Not this time!_

Ahead of them, a shout went up from the line of tower shields they were rapidly approaching, and with it a shower of javelins arcing toward the charging Senshi and Nerimans. Still beside Saturn, Neptune dramatically waved an arm in an arc across their front and a wall of water sprang up. It was instantly punctured by javelin points, a few punching all the way through to simply drop straight down and stick into the ground, all momentum gone, others suspended in the wall and slowly sliding down through the water.

“Keep going!” Neptune shouted when the Nerimans began to slow down, and just before they hit the wall it collapsed ahead of them, again revealing the startled soldiers, now soaked and staggering back into the second rank — and third — under the pounding wave. Before they could recover the racing defenders were upon them and they braced themselves, only to gape as nineteen people _leaped_ , soaring over the lines (accompanied by a shouted “Wheeee!” from the tiny form of Hinako in Soun’s arms).

Saturn glanced back as she ran to find another wall of water behind them with more javelins again stuck in it and sliding down toward the ground, then faced forward again, grinning for a moment as she focused on the square of soldiers ahead of them, already beginning to spread out into a line. Her Neptune-mama was getting good — but then, she didn’t have to wait until Pluto-mama could find time to take her to the dark side of the Moon for a private and safe place to practice attacks that needed to be dialed town from devastating entire buildings, potentially entire blocks. A weekend trip to a secluded beach (not to say privately owned, and just how much wealth and property did Setsuna-mama own?) worked just fine.

“Now!” Vanguard shouted.

The Senshi and martial artists slammed to a stop ten yards short, Soun swinging down his armful and whispering hastily in her ear. The childlike former teacher fished in her bag of coins as others raised arms, pointed staves, swords, the soldiers lifted their shields ... and a massive tide of water, fire, ice, lightning, slashes of energy and seemingly the very air slammed into them, smashing them back, down, aside, pieces of shield, armor, shrieking men spinning up and away.

Then they were charging forward again, splitting away into their separate groups. Saturn focused on the softly shining almost flat vertical circle in front of her, trying to ignore the shattered remnants of what had been scores of human beings moments earlier, the splashes of red across the grass, the stench of burnt flesh and spilled guts....

Ukyo and Konatsu, Xian Pu and Mu Tse put on a burst of speed to race ahead, each pair whipping around a different side of the portal to take out the almost ceremonial guards stationed there. By the time the other four caught up the two guards were already down, one dead without a head, the second unconscious and dying as he rapidly bled out from the stumps where an arm and a leg had been.

A distinctly greenish-faced Hammer tore her energy visor-covered eyes away from the sight, focusing on the face of her lover. ( _Too late_ , Saturn thought distantly, _she’s going to be seeing_ that _again in her dreams._ ) “Ran — Vanguard, please ... be careful,” the raven-haired girl said, voice soft. Vanguard simply nodded, smiling reassuringly as her sword sprang to life in her right hand and her kite shield across her left arm, then turned and stepped into the empty grayness of the portal and vanished from sight. The remaining seven quickly fell into a half-circle across the portal, Xian Pu and Mu Tse on the left flank, Ukyo and Konatsu on the right, Chibi-Moon, Hammer and Saturn in the center.

Saturn took a deep breath and stepped forward as she concentrated and the Silence Glaive materialized in her hands. _My turn to commit murder,_ she thought as she lifted her polearm vertically before her. For a moment she hesitated, shivers beginning to run through her as she looked across the lines of men between her and the apartment building Ranma had pointed out in the final briefing, rear ranks already turned to face her. Then the image of the park from a week before rose up, the tiny bodies scattered across the sidewalks and lawn, little Satoru crying for his dead mother and father, the battle before with the flying _things_ leaving people paralyzed as the snakes crushed the life from them, and her face went cold. She remembered a phrase she’d heard Mars use once, that the fiery Senshi had picked up from her private Catholic school: “As you sow, so shall you reap.” _Well, reap this,_ she thought, and the blade of the Silence Glaive began to glow. The glow brightened until a purple-tinged ball of light coruscated all around it, and then the blade dropped.

/\

Vanguard glanced around the tunnel she found herself in. It was a curving, circular tube the same softly glowing gray as the flattish circle she had stepped through, a bit over man-height, its texture just barely rough enough to keep her feet from slipping — just about the worst possible terrain for her family school of martial arts, and she once again asked the kamis’ blessings on Inouoe-san for giving her the idea of forming sword and shield out of her ki instead of claws.

 _C’mon, Ranma, the further in ya meet_ _‘em, the better._ The redhead started jogging down the tunnel, picking up speed to a full out run as she decided the footing was secure enough.

Less than a minute later Vanguard heard clanking noises coming from ahead of her, shuffling sounds, an indecipherable mix of human voices growing louder. She slowed back down to a jog. Suddenly, around the curve ahead of her two soldiers appeared, more behind them, wearing the same metal armor shaped like a man’s muscled torso, carrying the same shields as the soldiers she’d seen back in the park.

The eyes of the soldiers in the lead widened as she came into view, the one on the right yelling something in a language she’d never heard before even as they continued marching toward her. He looked her up and down as he approached, then leered at her as he called out something else. The other soldiers laughed, a hungry undertone to the sound that sent a shiver up the Moon princess’s spine, and suddenly an image flashed into her mind, the face of a dwarf of a man months dead, leering, laughing, taunting, groping....

Her hold on her center shivered, her shield and sword flickering in response, and Vanguard stopped, then backed up as she fought for control. _Hold it together, Ranma — he’s dead, he’ll never hurt ya again, and_ these _bastards sure as hell won’t!_ Slowly, the flickering faded away as her control again firmed up. Still carefully falling back, she took a deep breath. _Now!_

She abruptly thrust her lifesword forward, and the blade elongated to twice its normal almost three feet, the tip plunging into and through her taunter’s mouth to sever his spinal cord.

Even as his body started to fall forward, her sword fluctuated, transformed into a shield and she darted forward, sword in the hand where her shield had been, dropping and pivoting to take his partner across the knees just above his greaves, then leaping back to avoid the collapsing bodies.

The coarse laughter cut off and the soldier behind her second victim shouted in shock as arterial blood from the soon-to-be-corpse’s leg stumps splashed across his legs. Vanguard gave the two men now in the front rank a predator’s fierce grin even as her sword and shield again switched sides, and she ignored her rising nausea to flow forward again.


	34. March of Juuban

Tribune Marcus Manilius Otho ignored the chorus of chopped-off screams behind him that more than likely heralded the destruction of his reserves as he dropped from a sprint to a jog the last few yards to the inner edge of his circle of troops. Turning as he reached the first line of soldiers, he quickly checked his staff, and yes, they were all still with him. That done, he looked back toward the center, and saw just what he’d expected — the reserve that he and his staff had been standing beside when this world’s protectors had started their attack had been obliterated, and the newcomers were charging through its moaning, shrieking remains and ... and splitting up? Yes, one group was headed for the gateway, and the other had turned to race straight away from him toward the opposite edge of the circle of soldiers. No, they were stopping at the crystal column there, and —

“Sir, by the gateway,” Domitius said, a younger son of a rising family that had joined Manilius’ staff to check off the military service box needed for a political career. “The magical girl with the polearm, isn’t she supposed to be strictly a close-in fighter?”

“What?” Manilius turned his attention to the first enemy group, now stretched across the portal as best he could tell from the angle (no sight of the guards, most likely two more casualties). He lifted his eyes to his Heads-Up Display, highlighted the point and angle he wanted to view, and the cohort net selected a soldier looking the right direction and brought up his vidcam while signaling him to freeze in place and provide a stable platform. Manilius frowned as he examined the head-on view of the young magical girl now on his HUD, standing in the middle of the line of warriors stretched across the portal, a polearm longer than she was tall held upright in a wide two-handed grip. Domitius had a point, the briefings had all reported that this particular magical girl had never exhibited any distance attacks, but that stance had signaled her use of her energy shield and there were no soldiers close —

His eyes widened as the polearm’s long blade began to glow, the purplish light he had seen in clips of her energy shield forming a coruscating ball ... and then the blade dropped.

For a second, the world went totally silent — not even his own heartbeat was audible in his ears. Then the silence ended with a thundering roar that shook the battlefield, and for a split second his HUD displayed an onrushing wave of coruscating energy tearing up the sward before the view winked out. Whirling, he stared at the point where his soldier’s vidcam had been located, just in time to see a half-cone of the purplish energy slam into a building at the edge of the park beyond his line of legionnaires. The building vanished in a cloud of dust and debris as it literally exploded.

Manilius ignored the soldiers that stepped forward and raised their shields to provide cover for him and his staff from the plunging debris, the sound of pieces of brick and mortar pelting the shields to focus again on his HUD. He brought up the display showing the locations of all his men in the park — and froze in shock at the sight.

Normally, the kinetic suppressor field that went up with the appearance of the initial portal and expanded as larger portals were brought in and repeating stations placed protected the legions from the ranged kinetic weapons of the more advanced non-magitech worlds, even the shells and shrapnel of missiles and artillery. However, even the field that made it possible for men armed with swords and shields and battle beasts to conquer worlds armed with guns, tanks and high explosives had its limits, and a soldier that stepped directly on a landmine was going to have a _seriously_ bad day, even if the rest of his squad would be fine. And occasionally, militaries desperate to resist the unstoppable legions would create what were essentially massive mines tens of yards to a side, capable in the right situation of taking out half a cohort in one world-ending roar.

Manilius thought of the time that had happened to his cohort two conquests back as he stared at his HUD in heartsick awe. That time, his locator display had shown an area littered with the symbols of his dead, crippled and wounded men, and even some that through the blind fate that ruled over war came through with hardly a scratch. _This_ time, for a stretch covering almost a twelfth of his circle of troops there wasn’t a soul left alive. If she could repeat that massive wave of obliteration....

Hastily, the tribune sought a soldier vidcam still facing the enemy warriors at the portal, and fought to keep from slumping with relief as he saw the polearm-armed girl on her knees, using the haft of her weapon to hold herself up as another dark-haired costumed girl that had been conspicuously absent from his briefings knelt beside her, helping her back behind the others. It looked as if whatever she’d done was sufficiently draining to give him the time needed to keep it from being repeated.

Dropping the vidcam view, Manilius mentally triggered the frequency for the centurion to the north of the hole in his line. “Cincius.”

“ _Yes, Tribune.”_

“Forget holding the perimeter, we’ll have to reform it after more reinforcements arrive. Take your men and clear the enemy away from the portal. I’ll have Scribonius —”

Another roar interrupted him, this one very human, and Manilius whirled to again stare toward the new gap in his line as scores of women, and a few men, poured out of the doors and windows of the building beside the one that had been obliterated that he could see at that angle. The newcomers were waving swords, maces and spears as they charged screaming toward the gap in his perimeter.

Again bringing up the locater display on his HUD, he blanched at the arc of hostiles charging toward the gap as well as Cincius’s century to the north of the hole and Fufius’s and what was left of Verginianus’s centuries on the other side. “Forget what I said, see to your men,” he hastily ordered his centurion, and broke the connection. The enemy hadn’t just known when and where the beachhead would be arriving, they’d even known what _the layout_ would be; his cohort was at the center of an ambush, and the enemy was inside his decision loop, their actions invalidating his plans and orders even as he conceived them.

He watched his HUD for a moment, suppressing a wince as the new attackers hammered into his lines and poured through the gap. Even as the familiar battle mix of shouts of rage and fear, screams of pain and the blacksmith hammering of metal on metal broke out, the attackers coming through the hole split into three groups, two curling back to take his lines from the back while the middle charged down the path of devastation left by the magical girl’s massive blast toward the portal.

Suddenly, the overpowering cacophony of the battle that had erupted was overridden by a high, piercing, scraping _shriek_ like nothing he’d ever heard, that seemed to impale his mind through each ear and obliterate all thought. Even as soldiers around him were dropping swords and slamming hands over ears, some dropping to their knees from the pain, the shriek crescendoed in a shattering, tinkling wave and the crystal pillar directly across the park by the opposite side of his perimeter simply came apart in place, the shards dropping straight down.

 _Well_ inside his decision loop. Time to change that.

/\

Sailor Pluto watched from the top of the apartment building just on the other side of the point of the enemy lines where the enemy commander was standing, eyes dark as she watched her informally adopted daughter’s wave of destruction obliterate everything in its path before smashing into the empty apartment building, pieces of the bodies of the soldiers it had plowed through scattered back along its triangular track, hardly recognizable as men. She _really_ hoped that Saturn wouldn’t get close enough to see the bloody results of her attack, not that the lack would keep Setsuna and her platonic kinda-sorta co-wives from needing to comfort their gentle ward after the inevitable nightmares she didn’t need to foresee in the girl’s future. Though even that was a vast improvement on the hatred and mutual guilt that would have been all that was left of her relationship with the other surviving Outers after Hotaru’s death in the thankfully now-vanished former timeline.

Banishing the thought as a concern for a later day, she walked across to the opposite side of the roof and looked down, nodding in satisfaction at the sight of the apartment building’s residents streaming out of the front door and away, more civilians moving out of the other buildings along the block and soldiers, uniformed and with sidearms if lacking their clamshells and rifles, now placed along the street directing them away from the battle and preventing a panic — the same scene would be repeated all around the park, the evacuation was well in hand. By the time heaven’s little fistful of death and destruction might be needed again, the innocents should be out of the line of fire.

Behind her, the long-familiar cacophony of battle broke out, and she turned again and returned to watch as the Amazons hammered into the Confederate lines, swept around to take them in the rear, charged through to race toward the center of the park and the portal there. Any time, now ... and she winced as the ear-piercing, thought-obliterating shriek of a shattering crystal column exploded across the battlefield, momentarily ending all combat as enemies staggered apart, dropped weapons, grabbed at ears, even collapsed in some cases.

Now, if the Confederate tribune hadn’t been as shaken as he could have been....

As the combatants recovered, the two centuries closest to where the Amazons had been hammering the wings started to swing like doors, sweeping back to take their enemies in the rear, but the Amazon battle leaders had been warned about that possibility and the swings stopped as the Amazons heading for the portal split, each half turning to take the centuries in the rear.

 _So, one century mostly gone, its remnants and another four engaged, that leaves three, and ..._ And they were moving away from where they’d been part of the perimeter, two forming up to stage assaults on the portal and the Senshi and Nerimans already surrounding the next column, counterclockwise away from the unengaged centuries and closer to the Amazon/legionnaire scrum in the western half of the park. Time to go.

/oOo\

“Good morning, Colonel, gentlemen.”

Colonel Okuda and his staff whipped around away from the large table in the middle of the tent at the feminine voice behind them to find they’d been graced by the stately (if somewhat skimpily clad, not that the men minded) presence of Sailor Pluto. The colonel quirked an eyebrow at the newcomer as several of his officers let their hands fall away from the buttoned flaps of the holsters at their waists. “It seems Sailor Moon was right to warn me if you,” he said with a wry chuckle.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you are talking about,” Pluto replied haughtily, the severity of her expression belied by the twinkle in her eye.

“Of course,” he agreed. “It is time?”

“It is,” she replied, sobering. Stepping up beside the colonel as his subordinates made room, she oriented herself on the map of the park on the table and quickly traced the locations of both friendly and enemy forces, explaining each as she went.

When she finished, Colonel Okuda gazed at the map for a moment, frowning thoughtfully, before finally nodding. “Captain Imai, we’ll go with Zulu Three. Pass the word.”

“Yes, sir,” one of his aides acknowledged, saluted, and strode from the room.

“And now that that’s done, if you’ll excuse me I’ll rejoin my friends,” Pluto said. “I’ll see you on the battlefield.” Colonel Okuda nodded in acknowledgment, and she _stepped_ away.

/oOo\

Vanguard found herself gasping for breath as she rode down the body of her latest victim, crouching with her feet on the shoulders of the now headless corpse and trying her best to ignore the way arterial blood had splashed against the insides of her legs as she thrust her lifesword toward the snarling face of the soldier now ahead of her. The snarl slid away as the sword pierced an eye, sliced through the brain, and punctured the back of the helmet.

Hopping back as her ride thumped onto the floor with a soggy splash, she spun in place on the back of the armor of another corpse, blood-soggy blue skirt sticking to her legs, her red-booted foot slamming into the back of the shield of the soldier that had been to the left of her last target. The soldier staggered as his shield was knocked wide, his attempted thrust with his shortsword late and skewed off-target, and she dove forward, sword and shield vanishing to be replaced by energy spikes protruding forward from her clenched fists. Those fists blurred into amaguriken speed, lightly tapping against muscle-shaped armor of chest and abdomen as the spikes drove deep, and as fresh blood spattered across her face and trickled down the translucent energy visor covering her eyes she thought distantly that losing her last fight because of getting splashed by acid was turning out to be a _good_ thing.

Looking up as she recoiled from her strike, shield and lifesword flickering back into existence, she froze for a split-second at the sight of the next two soldiers in line stepping through a faintly shining gray wall cutting off the end of the tunnel — she’d fought her way all the way to the entrance at the Confederacy end of the tunnel!

The soldier on her left, eyes wide in shock, started to shift his shield to bring it from his side across his body, reaching across for his sheathed sword, and Vanguard’s sword sliced into his arm just above the elbow, through bone and tendon, and as it dropped she spun to slam a booted foot into the shield of his companion just as it covered its owner’s chest. The kicked soldier staggered back and vanished through the gray circle he had just walked through even as Vanguard turned back to her first target, lifesword cleanly sweeping his head from his shoulders.

Stepping aside to avoid the fresh gout of blood and collapsing body of her last victim, she crouched on one of the previous pair, waiting ... no one. Straightening slightly, she sucked in deep breaths between spits to try and clear the taste of blood out of her mouth, reflecting that for once since Jusenkyo, the lack of height of her female form was actually an advantage — it meant that even with the floor of the tunnel littered with bodies, she only needed to crouch a little to avoid hitting her head on the ceiling.

 _Okay, Ranma, time ta start thinkin’ again. They know you’re here, so what’re they gonna do about it?_ Thinking back to the battle stories that MacKenzie-sensei had told during their training breaks, the only thing that she could think of offhand was for them to toss in grenades of some sort if they had them, if the field that interfered with high level kinetic force didn’t cover the inside of the tunnel, followed by a rush. Still, she had her shield, so if she crouched, she could hide behind it, keep shrapnel away from anything vital....

_After this is all over, you’re gonna hafta practice with different shield shapes. Funny, how ya missed that when you were playing with different weapons. Later, let’s get moved back ta where ya first hit ‘em — it’ll take ‘em awhile ta catch up, the way they’re gonna hafta walk hunched over ‘cause a’ the bodies. With a little luck, maybe Big Sis an’ the other Senshi’ll be done before they catch up ta me._

Mind made up, Vanguard carefully backed up the way she’d come. _Please, let this be over soon!_

/\

Legate Aulus Verres Aviola stood with his staff waiting patiently behind him on the podium from which he’d signaled the beginning of the Confederacy’s latest conquest. The watching crowd had grown quiet and was beginning to shrink as the initial excitement faded and people headed home to their beds, but proper decorum required that he wait patiently as his troops moved through, to take his place at the end of the line when the last had passed him.

As he watched the two-man column of legionnaires steadily march forward through the portal, he dreamed of the glory to be his, and the political power that would come with it. The competition to be the legate in command of the first legion into the new frontier had been fierce, for centuries the prestige that position carried had been a clear sign of a family with serious influence. But his family’s decades of political maneuvering had finally paid off, and now that their day had come —

He jerked, ripped from his reveries by an alarm on the control panel briefly sounding. Glancing down, he stiffened, feeling a sinking sensation in his gut at the sight of the stud that had been blinking for his attention for almost a minute. Pressing the stud, he came to attention as the image of his commander, Consul Lucius Horatius Ligus appeared over his board. “Consul!” Verres barked, saluting.

“Legate,” his superior acknowledged. “Have you been observing your repeater display from the beachhead?”

“Ah, no, Sir. I’ve been momentarily occupied with a matter here.” His eyes shifted to the display, and he froze in shock at the sight of the pitched battle it reported. “By all that’s holy!”

“Indeed. And you will note that not only is Tribune Manilius Otho’s cohort heavily engaged, not only has the enemy succeeded in temporarily breaking down two of the support columns and is working on a third, but they have guards across the portal exit. If they have guards there, they will have them _within_ the portal, as well. And with the way the portal entrance cuts off all sound and signals, we have no way of knowing what’s happening inside.”

“Yes, Sir. I’ll stop the advance immediately and send someone in to report back on the status of —”

A shout from the portal interrupted him, and he looked up and gaped as a legionnaire staggered back out of the portal and into the man behind him. In an instant, the chain reaction caused by the collision flashed down the line, spilling legionnaires onto the cobblestoned road.

Shaking himself out of his shock, he shifted gaze back to his superior. “Sir, it seems we already have a partial report. With your permission, I’ll sort out what’s happening, send in a probe, and report back to you.”

“Very well,” Horatius agreed, and his image vanished.

Verres turned to his staff. “Which of you reviewed the contingency plans for this?” he asked.

The staff exchanged glances, but no one stepped forward.

“No one? I imagine that means that if they call for any extra equipment we don’t have that on hand, either. We will discuss the dimensions of proper staff work later, but first let’s get this mess cleared up. Manius Publilius, get down there and find out what happened from the legionnaire that was knocked back out. Helvius Quintus, Norbanus Felix, Valerius Megellus, get down there and have the crowd cleared out enough that we can set up formations other than that column down Liberator’s Road. Mamercus Caecilius, look up the files for the contingency plans and find out what we need and don’t have, pass out assignments to acquire it as needed.”

The staff saluted and scattered, and Verres turned back to look out at the confusion slowly being sorted out by the centurions in what room they had, then down at his repeater display in time to see a third column destroyed. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. _We’ve grown arrogant, careless,_ he thought grimly. _I just hope it doesn’t end up costing my family too much when the powers that be start looking for someone to blame._ Looking over to the portal, his eyes widened at the sight of runnels of blood beginning to ooze out of the gray entrance to the transdimensional tunnel and run along the lower gaps around the cobblestones, and he fought back a wince — well over two score legionnaires had passed through the portal and apparently weren’t coming back out on their own two feet, and wouldn’t _that_ make getting troops through the tunnel interesting? Whatever they did about whoever was standing in their way, they’d have to get the bodies out of the tunnel before they could relieve Manilius Otho’s cohort ... what was left of it. _More than it already has._

/oOo\

Centurion Decimus Sulpicius Pennus, First Spear of the Twentieth Legion, frowned as he watched in his HUD as the last of his men fell into the north/south rectangular block on the far eastern side of the battlefield. The other two unengaged cohorts between his and the fighting were almost finished falling into formation as well, and if Manilius saw the same thing he did, right about now —

A symbol flashed in an upper corner of his HUD, signaling that the tribune was calling in. _“First Spear,”_ Manilius said formally, _“Third and Seventh Centuries will be advancing, and you will be acting as a reserve and rear guard. I want you to thin out your line to twice its current length and refuse both ends, facing the edge of the park.”_

A diagram of the order position appeared, overlaying the century’s current position, and Sulpicius nodded as he forwarded the new layout on to his noncoms, with the added instruction to make it double-quick. “I take it you are expecting company?”

“ _And you aren’t?”_ Manilius replied rhetorically. _“Those women have proven better warriors than I ever thought normal women could, and thanks to the way they broke up our formation they’ll finish off five centuries as effective units. But by that point they’ll be spent, those that are alive and unwounded will be exhausted, and we still have three fresh cohorts unengaged. It could be they just brought what they could and hoped for the best, but considering how much they somehow knew about our plans, not likely.”_

Sulpicius smiled to himself. Whatever else he had done with his life, he’d trained this man — he could seek out his ancestors in heaven happy for just that. “Agreed, and —”

He broke off as a rash of new threat symbols appeared on his HUD, spilling around the buildings that edged the park. Splitting the screen, he brought up a vidcam and nodded, unsurprised at what it revealed: more combatants, male soldiers this time rather than female warriors — dressed in uniforms of the mixed, dull colors of men that had to spend much of their time in the dirt; clamshell armor covering their torsos and metal helmets; carrying what would usually be bayoneted rifles of some sort but here and now were clumsy spears. “You take care of the rest of the cohort, Sir, I have your back,” Sulpicius said.

“ _I never doubted it. God bless, Sulpicius.”_

“And you, Manilius.” The frequency went dead, and Sulpicius, First Spear of the Twentieth Legion, strode forward to join his men as the new enemy firmed up its formation and charged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the title is a play on "March of Cambreath." If you haven't heard it before, check it out on Youtube (even if the coolest amateur music videos have been removed, probably because of copyright violations).


	35. The Riddle

Verres watched his repeater display of the battle raging at the beachhead, keeping his face expressionless in proper stoic fashion. The legate was still standing on the podium in view of everyone across the plaza and watching from the surrounding buildings, soldier and civilian alike, and it wouldn’t do to show his growing dismay at what his display was showing.

“Legate?”

Verres looked up at the sound of Manius’s voice, relieved to have something to distract him from the unfolding catastrophe, even if it was likely to be more bad news. Manius and Mamercus were both waiting, the two staff members standing stiffly at attention. “Manius Publilius, report.”

“Yes, Sir. The legionnaire that backed out of the portal reports that he was engaged by what looked like a short human female. He didn’t have the opportunity to observe much before she finished off the man next to him and kicked him back out through the portal, but he didn’t see anyone else standing besides her — neither additional enemies, nor any of the legionnaires that had preceded him. I ordered another two legionnaires to enter and report back immediately, and they say that they found nothing but the bodies of our troops as far forward as they could see before the tunnel curved.”

“Yes, well, considering the blood running out of the portal, I can’t say it comes as a surprise,” Verres murmured. “Mamercus Caecilius?”

“Sir! I am afraid the word is not good,” the legionnaire barked, staring straight ahead. “The plan for dealing with opposition within the tunnel that cannot be handled by the men calls for inserting a canister of Quick Kill, then sending the troops through with their rebreathers active. Unfortunately, as you surmised there is none on hand, and it will be at least three hours before any can be brought up —”

“So long!” Verres broke in, dismay breaking through his stoic façade.

“Yes, Sir, the gas’s near-instant lethality precludes storing it within the city. I’ve given orders for several canisters to be brought here as fast as possible, but ...” Mamercus shrugged. “I checked for other less lethal war and crowd control gases and found several of the second stored within Rome, but the soonest any can get here is around an hour, what with how late it is — we have to wake up some people. And there’s no guarantee it will work against the enemy.

“With the Quick Kill unavailable, I did a quick check of the battle beasts laagered at the follow-up portal,” he continued. “ However, while a few of those readily available that would fit into the tunnel might be able to survive a head-on fight and push through to the other end, that cannot be guaranteed — whoever mowed down our men must be a formidable fighter. And if the battle beasts lose, we will have that much more trouble clearing the tunnel before we can send more men through.

“That leaves one other option I thought of: polearms. They should be short enough to maneuver through the curve in the tunnel, and may be enough to keep the enemy at bay and push her back. I found that there are polearms of the appropriate length within the city, and order several score delivered. They will be here within half an hour.”

Verres glanced down at the display, and suppressed a wince as the symbol of a fourth crystal column flashed for a few moments, then changed color to indicate that it was in repair mode. “It doesn’t look like Manilius Otho is going to _have_ half an hour, but if that is the best we can manage, that is the best we can manage. Mamercus Caecilius, detail enough legionnaires for the polearms coming, have them ready to move in as soon as they arrive. Manius Publilius, get a detail to start clearing the dead from the tunnel, to give us a clear path as far as possible. The detail is _not_ to attempt to engage the enemy. If they encounter her, they are to fall back immediately as quickly as possible — there is no point in adding more bodies to the tally to be removed before we can push through.”

Manilius and Mamercus saluted, and hurried away. Verres watched them go for a moment, then turned back to what might possibly be the most dangerous moment in his life, certainly politically and possibly physically — reporting the fiasco to the Consul.

/oOo\

Manilius ignored the fighting around him to focus on his Heads-Up Display. The century with which he and his staff had taken refuge had been one of the last that the attacking women (and occasional man) had reached and so had had time to turtle up into a square before it was attacked, and the attacking Amazons had to be on their last legs after finishing off what had been left of Verginianus’s century before moving on to completely overwhelm Fufius’s on the way here. Even now the blacksmith hammering and sounds of human rage and torment were dying away as the Amazons attacking the century fell back — exhausted, decimated, battle groups broken up, leadership hampered by casualties, it would be awhile before they were ready to attack again with what they had left.

No, what turned Manilius’s face grim was the _rest_ of the battlefield. On the southwest side of the perimeter, Verginianus had died in the same massive blast that had annihilated almost his entire century; Fufius had gone down in the initial confusion as the Amazons had hammered his stunned century from both sides, even as he’d bought Manilius and his staff time to shift to Apustius’s century farther east. On the northwest side, Afrianus was dead, and the remnants of his century had actually abandoned the battlefield completely, holed up in one of the buildings surrounding the park. Cincius was alive, but wasn’t going to be issuing any commands with a broken jaw or leading any charges with a shattered kneecap. His century wasn’t in any better shape after its survivors had actually managed to break through the Amazons. His optio had led the remnant in an assault on the magical girls shattering the anchors and their guards, only to learn a very brief lesson in what they were capable of — a lesson that many of them would never be able to profit from. Meanwhile, those magical girls had temporarily shattered four of the crystalline columns and had just moved on to the fifth, almost directly between the tribune and the westward-facing portal to the north.

Still, with Sulpicius’s century doing the work of three holding off the new wave of more typical, less effective troops for this type of world from the eastern edge of the park, Manilius still had two centuries not yet engaged. (He forced himself to ignore the way the shifting colors of the First Spear’s legionnaires showed them dying in place rather than allow themselves to be pushed back, and the group of enemy soldiers hanging back behind the line waiting for an opening. He was just going to hope that the dictum that the side that committed their reserves last won the battle didn’t hold true this time, because he had nothing to throw at them and his own reserves had been the first to fall.) If there was to be any chance of salvaging the situation — or getting any of his people home if he failed — he had to move now. And the party disrupting the anchors was _finally_ in position.

/\

Sailor Saturn slowly forced herself to her feet, using the shaft of the Silence Glaive as a brace. The world had finally stopped whirling around her, keeping her flat on her back even as, from the sounds of battle around her, her friends old and new had beaten off a few abortive attempts by legionnaires that had actually managed to break through the Amazons. It was time for her to rejoin the fight.

Beside her, Akane caught her elbow as she staggered slightly. ( _No, Hammer,_ Saturn reminded herself, eyes widening at the sight of a camera crew to the side filming the battle dying down around them). “Saturn, are you sure that’s a good idea? You still look kind of pale,” the raven-haired girl said, the concern in her eyes visible through the energy visor her lover had taught her to form.

“I’ll be all right, just a little tired. It isn’t fair — I let myself go and take out an entire block, and it wipes me out; I keep myself under tight control and destroy a single building, and it wipes me out;” the Senshi assured her, frowning worriedly as she looked over the former Tendo. “Are _you_ all right? You’re ... looking a little pale yourself.”

Hammer grimaced as she glanced down at the splash of blood across the white hammer sewn onto the front of her red leotard along with a few spatters of vomit, then at her sword arm red to the elbow. Her fingers had left streaks of red on the bare skin of Saturn’s arm. “The blood isn’t mine, I’m ... not hurt.”

The tightness around Hammer’s eyes labeled her a liar, but it was a lie Saturn had told in her time herself; she set it aside for later — they would have time to help each other get through the emotional trauma after the battle was over. Nodding to the camera crew instead, she asked, “Where did they come from?”

Hammer looked away from her friend, her gaze sweeping across their half of the park. Saturn’s eyes followed suit, sweeping across the body-strewn, gore-splashed grass with the occasional clump of Amazons and legionnaires watching each other as they maneuvered to clump together into larger groups. She paused for a moment at the sight if the open-air aid station already set up midway between the portal and the edge of the park. Amazons were helping each other toward it, stretcher bearers (mostly male), carrying others. Even the occasional legionnaire was staggering or crawling in its direction.

“Oh, the camera crew arrived looking for ... Vanguard with Tatewaki-kun and Doug-sensei, when the Amazons went after the flanks instead of coming here,” Hammer finally replied, eyes still sweeping the field.

“What?” Looking around, Saturn’s eyes widened again at the sight of a large, muscular handsome blond American she didn’t recognize standing at the south end of their line across the portal, Xian Pu and Mu Tse on one side and the kendoist that had so shocked everyone with his offer the day before on the other, the two men watching something behind the portal to the east on the other side at the end. “Hey, you didn’t call him the Blue Blunder or the Kendo Klutz, or something.”

“Yeah, well, after yesterday ...” Hammer shrugged.

“Yes, he _was_ rather intense, wasn’t he?”

“And he meant every word,” Hammer agreed. “Not that I’m going to —”

“They’re coming!” The shout from MacKenzie and Mu Tse on the south side and Chibi-Moon and Ukyo on the north yanked the two girls’ attention around, before Hammer just as quickly whipped back.

“I’m the rear watch, I can’t look,” she said through gritted teeth. “Go see what’s going on.”

Saturn nodded silently, briefly resting a hand on her friend’s shoulder before stepping over beside the other member of the Three Musketeers to look.

Chibi-Moon glanced over at the intruder between her and the portal, then shoved lightly against Ukyo to make room. Ukyo glanced over, then pushed against her servant and the three sidled over.

Saturn stepped into the space, and blanched as she finally saw the other half of the park ... and what looked like several hundred men on the march in two broad lines, half straight toward her, and the other half ... the young girl’s stomach sank as she stepped out of the line to look south. Yes, the second group was angling across, aimed directly at the rest of the Senshi gathered around another crystal tower, and their Neriman protectors — including her Uranus-papa and Neptune- and Pluto-mamas.

She quickly took stock of herself — still a bit light-headed, the world wobbling ever so little, but it would have to do. She’d lost one family, she wouldn’t lose another. If necessary, she and the rest at the portal could take refuge with Vanguard inside it until they could be relieved. Facing squarely toward the enemy threatening her parents, she held up the Silence Glaive vertically before her in a slightly shaky two-handed grip. Again, the large blade at the end was surrounded by a slowly expanding ball of coruscating purple energy as she held on ... and on ... she didn’t want to obliterate the entire park and everyone in it ... just a little longer ... and the Silence Glaive sliced downward.

/\

Genma growled softly as he looked around the battlefield to the north of the pillar they’d surrounded. He was tense, just a little bored, and _really_ not looking forward to the next few minutes. For him, the battle so far had been an easy one — a few stragglers that had broken through the Amazons surrounding them, and a single serious effort by a few score legionnaires that had actually managed to close to hand-to-hand for a few exciting minutes (the survivors, at least, temporarily). No, the only really bad part of the experience so far was the pounding headache he had from the earsplitting, thought-obliterating screech the columns made as the weak bitches he was guarding shattered the things.

Looking back over his shoulder, he admired the view for a moment, a mini-skirted Senshi bathing the east side of the column in a steady stream of fire and another one on the west side hitting it with pure cold. By now, he knew the routine — the two would keep it up for around another five minutes, then the blonde ditz would wrap a chain around it and hit it with a series of hearts (he sneered at the memory — what kind of warriors shot _hearts_ at their enemies?) while the _other_ blonde ditz would bathe it in light from some kind of crystal, the brown-haired one would hit it with lightning, the shriek would build up until it overpowered everything else, the column would shatter, and once everyone picked themselves off the ground they’d be on to the next one.

Glancing to his left out of the corner of an eye, he quickly checked out the natural wonder on display beside him. The freak that had crawled into bed with his former friend might be an emasculating bitch as well as a weak one, but the way her body had filled out her dress after she started sucking ki out enemy soldiers had been a beautiful sight — one that had only improved when the dress proved unequal to the rigors of battle and split at the seams, falling open to expose one breast, only the belt for her pouch of coins keeping the rags in place enough to preserve any modesty at all.

Not that she was concerned about modesty at the moment. The stupid fool had proven that she had no place on a battlefield by losing her breakfast at the first pillar after they’d run through what had been left of the enemy’s reserve, and ever since she hadn’t been willing to actually fire at any of the soldiers that had attacked them. Instead, she had _only_ sucked them dry of energy, and by now Genma thought that he could see a faint shimmer around her body, as if she were white-hot instead of clammy with what had to be fear-sweat. The shimmer couldn’t be heat, or it would have evaporated the tears slowly running down her face. How like a woman.

_But they aren’t_ all _weak, are they?_

Unwillingly, Genma’s gaze shifted to the portal, and the short line of fighters waiting for the enemy to attack. Ignoring the American stranger and the buffoon dressed up like an ancient samurai, the “master” of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Art’s eyes focused on the two Chinese, especially the purple-haired girl in the middle — the girl that had dared to march into _his_ house and actually give him orders and threaten to kill him. The girl as responsible as any for the fact that his School would die with him, changing his heir into a weak girl and turning her against him. If they actually won this battle he would end his days living comfortably, but forgotten — a nobody, like his late, unlamented pervert of a master.

“Here they come,” the Senshi with ice powers said, resignation evident in her voice.

_Another weakling,_ Genma thought dismissively as he glanced to the east. Yes, the two formations that had been forming up were on the move, one headed for the portal and the other straight at them, each at least twice as large as the first formation they’d annihilated on their way in. And as for the formation that had been to the south between them and the edge of the park, a few steps to the side so he could see past the column showed those legionnaires headed for them as well, though not nearly as many as the other two.

“Pay attention to your own side, we have this one. It looks like their timing is a bit off, we should be able to deal with these ones in time to help you.”

Genma nodded brusquely to the emerald-haired, black miniskirted Senshi and turned back without a word to focus on his mass of enemies, trying to ignore the shiver that ran down his spine. Something about that woman, even worse than Ku Lon in spite of the absurd heart-tipped staff ... Glancing to his side, he sneered as he saw that Hinako was beginning to shake, his former friend on her other side laying a hand on her shoulder, his naginata braced upright in his other hand. Not all weaklings were women.

Suddenly, for the second time that morning for a second everything went silent, dreamlike, only to reawakened with a roar to shake the world as a spreading, mounting wave of purple energy flashed from the portal to slam into the formation marching toward him. Even as pieces of bodies splashed outward, the wave smashed its way through the formation, out the other side, and onward to blow a wide hole through the flank of the line of enemy soldiers holding back the Japanese reinforcements ... as well as the soldiers the legionnaires were fighting.

The first time that power had roared to life Genma had been helping fight off the first of the legionnaires moving against his group and hadn’t been able to observe its effects. Now, the middle-aged martial artist stared at the torn-up sward covered with pieces of bodies, so stunned by what had happened that he barely noticed as the onrushing blast smashed into the apartment building just south of the one from which they’d begun their attack less than an hour before, and rubble lifted high into the sky as the building exploded. _We’ve won._

But that still left the formation moving on the portal, and even as the sounds of several of the Senshi behind him firing their attacks at the formation on the other side of the pillar erupted behind him, he refocused on the last large unengaged formation in the middle of the park. With the destruction of its brother formation its legionnaires had broken into a trot, and a vicious smile spread across Genma’s face as he considered the people bracing themselves for the attack, his eyes sweeping the chaos of the battlefield. _You know, we don’t really need any of them to win, anymore. Even if more reinforcements get through, they won’t be enough to stop us from destroying the last of the columns. And if more Amazons die while dealing with them, all the better. And accidents happen on battlefields all the time, I think there’s even a name for it._

Stepping forward, he sent one vacuum blade after another screaming downrange to hammer away at the charging century, working from back to front along its side, leaving a line of torn bodies, blood and gore in their wake. Just as he reached the head of the formation he took a step forward, twisted an ankle underneath him and went down heavily on his side, sending two more vacuum blades ripping straight at his unsuspecting teammates at the portal. Only one of them _hadn’t_ been unsuspecting, and a shout rang out. The blond stranger dropped, kicking the feet the deluded samurai-in-his-own-mind out from underneath him as he did, even as Mu Tse whirled and did the same to Xian Pu — just before the vacuum blade slashed in and he vanished from sight in a blood-red cloud.

_Yes!_ Genma exulted as he clambered to his feet. He had missed the one he’d been aiming for, but he’d seen the two cuddling up to each other the day before, and oh, how he’d just _hurt_ her. _This’ll teach that castrating bitch to —_

“Murderer!”

Twisting around at the shout, Genma’s eyes widened at the sight of Hinako facing him straight on, both hands stretched out at arm’s length with four coins each held between her fingers and thumbs. Even as he tried to raise his arms for one more vacuum blade he could feel his ki draining away, his knees weakening and threatening to dump him on his face, the world dissolving into a collection of pastel spots and blobs of color — and Hinako _shrieked_ , just before an explosion picked him off his feet and hurled him backwards.

Rolling with the impact, the balding martial artist flipped back to his feet, searching with star-sprinkled vision for his enemy, to find her long, voluptuous _steaming_ body lying facedown in a shallow crater, naked except for a few scorched remnants of her dress about her shoulders and arms. Beyond her, Soun was rising shakily to his feet, picking up his naginata. And ... Genma looked over at the stunned Senshi just in time to see the emerald-haired one vanish from sight.

_Time to go._ Taking a deep breath, Genma steadied himself and calmly pulled the obscuring cloak of the umisenken about him, fading from his enemies’ — all his enemies’ — sight before racing for the edge of the park, easily dodging around the legionnaires and Amazons in his way to disappear into the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from the song of the same name from the Broadway musical "The Scarlet Pimpernel." It isn't a perfect fit but comes pretty close, especially the last bit:
> 
> Oh, every Judas once loved a Jesus  
> But finally treason will seize us  
> And only fools follow golden rules  
> We all are caught in the middle  
> Of one long treacherous riddle  
> Of who trusts who, maybe I'll trust you  
> But can you trust me?  
> Wait and see!
> 
> A quick word on how Roman names work: each man had three names, personal, family, and nickname (sometimes used as a secondary family name). When being formal two were used, the first and second or second and third. When being informal, the family used the personal name while friends usually used the family name.


	36. Winterborn

Colonel Okuda rocked gently on his heels where he stood beside Captain Nishio, commander of his reserve, hands clasped behind him and face impassive as he watched (and listened to) his men clash with the enemy rearguard. Maintaining the poise expected of him has taking all the willpower he had that wasn’t being used to keep himself from sending his reserve charging into battle.

Things were _not_ going well. Oh, he had no worries about a counterattack. What free units the enemy had, had greater concerns than his men. But while he firmly believed that the Japanese Self Defense Force was one of the best-trained militaries around — if lacking in experience — the few weeks of training his unit had received in a style of combat that had gone out of fashion almost two centuries before didn’t come close to allowing them to match their adversaries, and they were dropping faster than the enemy. A _lot_ faster. At the rate his men were falling, even with the reserve committed, by the time they overwhelmed the rearguard they’d have nothing left to carry the fight further into the park. He’d considered swinging that reserve to one flank or the other, but at the rate his men in line were falling the enemy could well force a breakthrough and be rolling up his line first. The only way to stop that was with his reserve, so here he stood, locked in place as his men died.

To make things worse, the reinforcements that had been kept farther back than his small quick-reaction force, outside the radius Sailor Pluto had reported likely to be scanned by the enemy however he did it, was delayed. While for the most part the evacuation of civilians from around the battle was proceeding in an orderly fashion, in a few places it had broken down into panicked flight. Unfortunately, one of those places had been a block over from the reinforcements’ planned route and had spilled across it, and so they were being forced to detour. They’d still arrive, but not likely while he still had a fighting force worthy of the name.

Suddenly, the shouts and screams and blacksmith-hammering sounds of battle cut off, turning the world into a surreal silent movie. Even as Colonel Okuda wondered if his hearing loss was permanent, the sound returned in a massive blast, as to his left a wave of purplish energy surged through the line, obliterating friendly and enemy soldiers alike, pieces of weapons, armor, bodies and gore thrown outward, as it continued on and an apartment building behind them exploded.

Even as more soldiers on both sides were hammered down by plunging debris, he barely noticed, staring in amazement at the wide hole left in the left flank, his impassive mask vanishing in a wide grin. “Go!” he shouted at Captain Nishio. “Go now, now, now!” Matching deed to word, he snatched up a fallen soldier’s bayoneted rifle and charged toward the breach. Moments later, the entire reserve was thundering after him, screaming loud enough that he could easily hear them through the ringing in his ears.

/\

Hammer was feeling more than a little put-upon. Why did _she_ have to be the rear guard? _That’s not fair, you were the best choice,_ she thought as her eyes again swept the view before her, ignoring the camera crew as she searched for nonexistent threats. _Usa-chan has a ranged attack, Ukyo-kun, Konatsu-kun, Shampoo and Mousse come in pairs and we only need one, Doug-sensei has_ way _more experience than you do, and do you really trust Kuno that much?_

Still, however true that might be, it reminded her of the way she’d felt when Ranma had first shown up, and she’d instantly gone from being the best martial artist around to last place in an ever-lengthening list. At this point the growing feeling of ill-use grinding at her soul was beginning to threaten the calm at her center.

The way Hotaru — Saturn — had finally climbed to her feet and promptly gotten into line while she had had to keep watch for nonexistent threats as the latest attack came at her from behind hadn’t helped.

Hammer realized she was grinding her teeth together, and forced her jaws to unclench as a hand traced the symbol on her chest. _Hammer, not Akane. Remember, you’re Hammer. Remember_ why _you’re Hammer. Hold it together. You managed to keep centered through everyone’s hate and fear during the fighting, don’t let this throw you._

Suddenly, her growing anger vanished as the world went deathly silent, all the screams and cries of wounded men, the sounds of the Outer Senshi’s attacks from across the park to her left cut off as if someone had flipped a switch. Then sound returned with a thunderous roar she actually felt through the soles of her boots, and she whirled to stare over Xian Pu’s and Mu Tse’s shoulders at the mounting flood of purplish light sweeping across the park to the south. _But ‘Taru was barely recovered from the_ last _one!_

Her watch forgotten, the white skirt-clad girl raced for the hole in the north line where Chibi-Moon had been, to find her pink-haired friend pulling Saturn along the ground toward the west side of the dimensional doorway, Saturn’s hands clenched tight around the Silence Glaive. Stepping forward and glancing around at the other half of the park (and fighting not to quail at the sight of the mass of legionnaires still marching toward them), Hammer grabbed a shoulder to help, and they pulled their friend to relative safety.

Dropping to her knees beside her too-still friend, Chibi-Moon beside her, Hammer didn’t like what she saw at all. The short, slight girl’s eyes were closed, her face was a pasty white, shivering as sweat beaded on her forehead — all familiar symptoms of someone that had put too great a strain on her energy reserves. Ignoring MacKenzie’s shout that they couldn’t hold and it was time to get Vanguard out and fall back, she closed her eyes and extended her ki the way her lover had shown her, until it permeated the Senshi of Destruction’s body. After a moment, she sat back with a sigh of relief. “She’s overextended herself, she’s in shock,” she reported tersely, and nodded toward the aid station. “She needs to keep warm. We need to get her over to Kasumi and Dr. Tofu, they ought to have blankets. But give her a few days in bed, and she should be fine.”

Chibi-Moon nodded, rising to her feet. “Right, take her over. You should be able to get there and rejoin us with the others.”

“What?”

“Everyone down!”

Conditioned after long weeks of training to respond instantly to that tone in MacKenzie’s voice, Hammer dove across Saturn’s unconscious body to tackle Chibi-Moon. Even as they crashed to the ground, she twisted to look toward the south end of the portal — just in time to see Mu Tse’s upper and lower body and arms fall in different directions, a welter of blood and gore splashing across his lover lying at his feet.

Hammer rolled up to her knees. She stared, mind numb, as the bloodstained Xian Pu sat up and pulled Mu Tse’s head and upper torso into her lap. Someone grabbed her jaw and her head turned to face Chibi-Moon. The pink-haired girl’s lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in her ears. Suddenly her head rocked to the side as Chibi-Moon’s palm cracked across her cheek. Her hand caught her friend’s as it was returning for a backhand slap as the world became _real_ again. “What ... what did you say?”

“I said, Doug-sensei says the battle’s won but we have to go, now, we can’t hold them here!” Chibi-Moon almost shouted. Stopping and taking a deep breath, she continued, “Step in the portal and yell a warning to Vanguard, and get Saturn to the aid station, then join us with the other Senshi if you can.”

“Just leave Ra — Vanguard behind?” Hammer protested.

“We don’t have time to wait! She’s the best, she’ll be able to fight her way free, now come on!”

Hammer stared at her friend, thoughts of the legionnaires arriving before Ranma could get out, pressing in close, shields together with no room for her lover to maneuver, short swords stabbing — that was exactly the opposite of what Anything Goes, at least Ranma’s variant, was all about, to keep the room they needed to maneuver, not get surrounded. Ranma _was_ the best of them, but still ...

In a sudden flash of clarity, she knew exactly what to do. Rising to her feet, she looked over at the aid station and the Amazons guarding it and her sister, then looked down again at her two newest and possibly closest friends. “Moon, get Saturn to the aid station, and stay there. We’ll be on the other side of the field, and the medics may need help when these people arrive.”

Without waiting for a reply, she turned and strode over to where true US Marine and true samurai now stood waiting beside a keening Xian Pu still kneeling on the ground. Hammer glanced for a moment at the rapidly approaching enemy formation, then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and fought to let go of the fear and anger beating at her core and again seek her center, staggering slightly as overwhelming anguish radiating from the girl by her feet hammered into her, the fear of Ukyo and Konatsu, the camera crew increasing the pressure as they joined them.

But from one person there was no fear at all, only calm acceptance of whatever came, and Hammer turned to the young man that had tormented her for years. “Kuno-san ... Tatewaki, our princess has need of you.”

Kuno dropped to a knee. “Command me, my lady.”

Hammer pointed at the enemy formation. “Go, kill as many as you can, as long as you can. Buy me the time I need to get Yasuko out of this trap.”

“Yes, my lady, it will be done!” he said eagerly. He sprang to his feet and whirled to charge the oncoming formation alone.

Ignoring the shock from most of those around her (MacKenzie alone was unsurprised), Hammer turned and with a few strides stepped through the portal.

/\

Kuno smiled broadly as he charged toward the scores of legionnaires quick-marching to attack the Princess and her handmaiden, unable to maintain the stern expression expected of a warrior about serious business in the face of the joy filling his soul. The previous day when the Princess so easily forgave the dishonor he had heaped upon her, she had demonstrated the feminine generosity that she hid behind the fiery part of her nature that she used to protect herself from the world. Having done so, he would not have dreamed of adding to that dishonor by refusing her gift. But her forgiveness did not wipe his honor clean, and as his charge brought him close enough to the foe to see the hard, determined expressions on faces framed by shield edge, cheek guards, and helmets, he thanked all the kami that what one lady had denied him in her mercy the other had given him in her need.

Without breaking stride, he gathered his strength, focused, and while still several strides away swept his katana in a horizontal arc at neck height, his grin turning fierce as half a dozen heads leapt from shoulders from the mere shock wave of his blow. Even as the next rank was stumbling over the corpses in front of them, some frantically wiping at eyes abruptly blinded by blood spraying from neck stumps, he slammed into them. He’d learned in the earlier brief encounters that though his will might strengthen a bokken to the point that it could slice through a tree, it could not strengthen one of the finest swords ever forged enough to cut through these shields. But that merely meant that he’d shifted to the smaller targets, and screams mixed with shouted battlecries as sword hands and forearms fell away and his blade swept across eyes and throats.

For long minutes he whirled in place as the enemy surrounded him, instant crippling or death for anyone that came within reach of his katana. But finally he was completely surrounded, and a concerted rush behind shields from all sides pinned him in place as shortswords slammed home into stomach, kidneys and back. Even as the pain ripped through him and he felt his legs go numb from the thrust that severed his spine, his eyes sought the portal he had just left, and there staring at him was the blood-drenched form of Princess Yasuko. As he felt more strokes thrust home and the world darkened around him, he again smiled — his loves would live, and his honor had been redeemed. _Perfect._

/\

Again, Vanguard was dancing. Since she had retreated from the dimensional tunnel’s exit into the enemy’s world to where she had encountered the first of her victims (and “victims” was what they’d been — however experienced or well-trained they may have been, they might as well have been children for all the chance they had to match her), she had been alone, waiting for the next assault that hadn’t come. As minute after slow minute had dragged by and the memories of what she’d just done mixed with the fears of what she’d have to do, the tension had mounted until she’d been holding on to the calm at her core with metaphorical bleeding fingernails.

Then she’d remembered the day on the roof of Akane’s high school when she’d first learned that her life now came with a standard set of bodyguards, whether she liked it or not. And the way she’d been dancing when she noticed Xian Pu’s presence. So now she danced, shifting from one slow, smooth, graceful kata to another, every one that she could perform in the limited space she had. She ignored the occasional sight of the corpses, the stench of ruptured bodies filling the tunnel, the way her boots sometimes splashed in the wide runnel of blood slowly making its way along the floor, and the red-splotched footprints her dance left when she wasn’t splashing. All her attention was focused on the motion of flesh through space, and keeping herself open to the expected “glow” of approaching life.

In the end, that “glow” came from her end of the tunnel, not the enemy’s, and instead of the anger- and fear-soaked ki of soon-to-be-dead soldiers, it was clear, clean ki that could belong to only one person.

“Ranma!”

Vanguard finished her latest simple pattern, then turned with a wide smile for her lover, only to have it fade at the sight of Hammer’s greenish-white complexion, the stunned expression on her face. “Hey, Akane, you all right?” she asked, trotting toward her.

Hammer shook herself. “Yeah, I’m fine. Come on, the enemy’s coming and we can’t stop them, time to go, rejoin the Senshi, now!”

“Great!” Vanguard gusted out, fighting to keep from slumping in relief. She grabbed Hammer’s hand and pulled her toward the exit, not noticing her lover’s wince.

Within minutes the pair was back out in the morning sunlight, the sounds of battle and faint miasma of violent death pure heaven after the tunnel. Vanguard glanced over toward the three at the south side of the portal as soon as she stepped out, as their shock hammered into her. “What’s wrong?”

“Ran-chan, are you all right?” an almost panicking Ukyo demanded. “All that blood ...”

The redhead looked down at herself and stumbled, fighting for calm at the sight. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I’m fine, it isn’t mine.” Hastily glancing around (eyebrows going up inside her ki visor at the sight of her teacher in sword and shield, and the familiar camera crew), she frowned in concern. “Where’s Saturn an’ Chibi-Moon? An’ what’s everybody watching? What happened ta Sham — Mousse!”

Hammer sighed. “Saturn pushed herself too hard, Chibi-Moon’s taken her to big sis. Mousse ... Mousse caught one of your ... one of Genma’s vacuum blades, I don’t know if it was deliberate or not.”

Vanguard strode over to her old fiancée, the other girl staring into nothing as tears rolled down her cheeks and despair rolled off her in waves., and started to kneel only to pause when MacKenzie spoke. “Vanguard, you need to see this.”

She looked up, confused, then over in the direction her teacher was gazing and gaped at the sight of her long-time nemesis several scores of yards away. The kendoist — samurai — was whirling in place, the perfect form that he loved and that had helped her beat him into the ground time and again abandoned.

Around him, legionnaires charged in and spilled away, dropping swords and shields, clutching wrists and arm stumps, at throats as arterial blood sprayed, at eyes, screaming. Then they’d completely surrounded him, and all she could see was his face turned towards her as the legionnaires charged in again en masse. For a moment her eyes met his, and then he was gone, dropping from sight, buried under the mass of enemy soldiers. She thought he had been smiling.

MacKenzie sighed as the legionnaires began reforming their ranks. “That’s it, time to go.”

“I ... he ... wh-wh-why ...” Vanguard stammered out, her voice shaking.

“So we would have time to get you out,” he answered, radiating sympathy, and Hammer took her hand.

Ukyo dropped to her knees beside Xian Pu and laid a hand on her former faux-rival’s shoulder. “Come on, Sugar,” she softly murmured. “He’ll still be here when this is over, but for now we need to leave.”

For a moment it seemed that the Amazon hadn’t heard her, but then awareness seeped back into lifeless eyes. Letting go of her dead lover, she scrubbed at her cheeks with bloody hands, nodded, and without a word gently slid him off her lap and rose.

Even as the much-reduced formation resumed its quick-time march toward the portal, that portal’s defenders broke into a run away, toward the fifth column and their friends and family there. The camera crew followed, pausing occasionally to sweep their camera around them.

/\

The tribune of the First Cohort of the Twentieth Legion stared in shock at his Heads-Up Display, heartsick. Less than a minute ago he’d had a real chance of pulling victory from the jaws of defeat, with a rearguard giving better than it was taking, two centuries not yet engaged and moving on their targets and his current decimated century moving forward in support. Seconds later, it had all fallen apart with one massive wave of energy. As expected, the century he was with — his now he supposed, since Apustius had just gone down — had been hammered back by the ranged attacks of the magical girls protecting the ones bringing down the columns (women, really, now that he had had the chance to take a close look at them through an attacking soldier’s vidcam). But the main assault on the same women had been obliterated by that all-consuming energy strike, the enemy’s reserves were flowing through the massive hole the same wave had blown through his rearguard and the symbols in his HUD for its soldiers were vanishing like candle-flames in a wind, and his final unengaged century had first been hammered along one side by some sort of energy attack he’d never dreamed of and now had stopped in its tracks as a single warrior was dealing an _unbelievable_ amount of damage to its front ranks. Even as the warrior dropped and the century quickly began to reform, he doubted it would be able to force the portal. It was over.

Suddenly, his jaw dropped and he stared, gaping, as the warriors guarding the portal moved away, toward the column almost directly between them and his century, and the magical girls around it. They were abandoning their post? But ... _But they see it, too. You’ve lost, and there’s no point wasting their lives fighting for a position that no longer matters — at least to them._ Hastily, he sent out a ‘Hold’ order to his century, designated the portal the immediate rally point, and broadcast it to every legionnaire left on the field. That done, he toggled his inherited century’s frequency. “Relax, men, we aren’t staying behind,” he assured them. “We’re just waiting for the warriors in front of us to move on. No point in wasting lives trying to push through them, not now.”

/\

The first thing Vanguard saw as they jogged up to the other Senshi and Nerimans was a badly worried Tendo Soun kneeling in a shallow crater, the unconscious naked form of his lover cradled in his arms, armored Endymion with his sword drawn and Sailor Neptune standing behind them. “Hinako-sensei! What happened?” Vanguard gasped, dropping to her knees next to the Nerimans with Hammer right beside her.

“Your father,” Sailor Pluto replied, stepping around the column where a shaking Sailor Mercury was standing with her arms upraised and freezing cold fog rolling against the column where it came up against the stream of fire on the other side from a sweat-drenched Sailor Mars. “When he killed your friend, Hinako-san tried to drain him and overloaded. Don’t worry, she’s a little cooked and would be dead within days, but she’ll survive long enough for you to save her once we finish mopping up. Your father ran away.”

Vanguard stared up, battered by the waves of anger, sorrow, satisfaction and pride coming from her old friend. “Mopping up?” she repeated.

“Yes. We still have six pillars to take down, but it’s all over but the shouting.”

At that Vanguard broke, her calm shattered, leaning over with arms across her stomach as she lost what was little she’d been able to eat less than an hour before. As Hammer leaned over and tried to put an arm around her shoulders, Vanguard pushed her away, smearing blood across her lover’s chest. Don’t touch me! I’m all ... all bloody ...”

Tears running down her face, Hammer ignored Vanguard’s protests to pull the shaking girl into her lap. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s just blood, it’ll wash off ... wash off of both of us.” Gathering her lover in her arms, she stood and stepped away from her father and former teacher. “Neptune?”

Nodding, eyes watery with unshed tears, the Senshi of the Deeps held her hands up and closed her eyes. A ball of swirling water formed, grew, grew more as she opened her eyes and sent it drifting up over the heads of the two girls. The green-haired woman clenched her hands into fists and the globe broke, cascading down, the pink water pooling around their feet.

Vanguard gasped as the abrupt cleansing washed over her, but her shaking eased. Briefly hugging Hammer, she wriggled and the other girl reluctantly put her back on her feet. Closing her eyes, Vanguard fought for calm, releasing the grief and guilt wracking her, letting it sweep through her as she sought her heart’s calm. After a moment, she sighed contentedly as she felt the concern from all around her. “I’m all right, guys, really. I’ll be fine.”

Pluto gazed at her, the Senshi of Time’s calm exterior not revealing her own radiated love and guilt. But after a few moments she nodded, then raised her voice. “Okay, girls, take it down!”

And the pillar they were standing beside began to whine as Venus’s chain wrapped around it, Jupiter’s lightning crackled, and it suddenly seemed to glow as Moon’s purifying light washed over it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from the song by Cruxshadows.


	37. Checkmate

No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are.

Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.

— _The Art of War_ , Sun Tzu

* * *

Legionnaires finally stopped spilling out of the portal into the chaos that had engulfed the Plaza of Triumph. The unwounded and lightly wounded formed ranks on hastily cleared lawn to one side, uncaring of which centuries they belonged to in the need to simply get them out of the way. Ambulances swept down to load up with the seriously wounded that had managed to make it through, mostly under their own power, some supported or even carried by their comrades. As quickly as the vehicles landed, they were filled and lifted off through airspace cleared by the police for the nearest hospitals.

Still standing on the podium, Verres idly speculated for a moment what it would be like to use flyers for combat. But the energy fields that powered them only extended so far and could fluctuate without overlapping coverage, and the crystals that powered them were vulnerable to at least temporary destruction (as the new enemy was proving), so using them for anything but rear echelon support was ... unwise.

_Enough, Aulus,_ the legate thought, forcing himself to focus on the repeater display showing the final moments of the losing battle at the beachhead, the only large body of legionnaires left still gathered around the portal after Manilius Otho decided sending any more through would risk them still being inside the tunnel when the portal went down, as the enemy magical girls threw everything they had at the last anchoring pillar. Verres was a little surprised that he’d actually relaxed enough to allow his mind to wander, but the Manilius’ decision to evacuate as many men as possible before the portal collapsed had gone a long way to relieving Verres’ worries, at least about his family’s future — _now_ he had someone else to blame for the lost battle, and the “guilty” party would at worst be an enemy prisoner and at best dead. Either way, he wouldn’t be around to personally defend himself. His father would be, of course, and it would be obvious to anyone with any real military experience that Manilius Otho had done as well as could be expected. But the Manilii had enemies in the Senate and Verres figured that with their help his family could throw up enough confusion to survive.

_Sorry, Manilius,_ he thought as he watched the symbol on the repeater display for the last column anchoring the portal flicker and vanish. _You’re a good man, but family comes —_

When a heartsick and worried Verres had thought that the Confederacy had grown arrogant, he had been more right than he knew. When the Confederacy’s mage-techs had first learned how to create stable portals between dimensions, they had placed those portals far from any urban center out of respect for the energies inherent in their creation and operation. But years had turned into decades into centuries, no portal had ever failed, and they had become vital to the economy of the constantly expanding cross-time empire. In time, the portals had been moved to the capitol even as the reasons for their initial placement were first disregarded and then almost forgotten by all but a few mage-techs. In the top-heavy, centralized state of the Alarna Confederacy, all roads truly led to Rome.

Now as the feedback caused by the collapsing portal smashed into the surviving terminus, a tiny star was born in the heart of The City and its millions.

The new star only survived for a fraction of a second, but that tiny slice of time was more than enough as the wavefront of abruptly superheated air smashed outward in all directions, annihilating all in its way for tens of miles — including the portals leading to every world in the empire. Even as the new star winked out of existence, leaving behind a vast, shallow, glassed, crackling-hot crater just as quickly cooled by inrushing water from the Tyrrhenian Sea (sending more massive clouds of steam into the atmosphere to join the steam, smoke and dust the initial event had thrown up), central cities on Earth after Earth shared Rome’s fate as a chain reaction of collapsing portals swept through the Confederacy, even more destructive due to their larger sizes. Within a matter of seconds, the work of centuries was gone.

It would be more centuries before the Earth that had dominated worlds would again be united under a single government, and never again would its people seek to conquer across the dimensions.

/oOo\

Manilius sighed with relief as the _shriek_ of the last shattering column broke off with its destruction, then sighed again as the portal flickered and vanished. _Well, that’s that. Now, to save as many of the ones that I wasn’t able to get out as I can._ Ignoring the legionnaires around him taking hands away from their ears, some rising to their feet, he turned his attention back to his Heads-Up Display, and the planned formation on three sides of the enemy aid station at the edge of the park he had been spelling out to the only centurion that wasn’t a casualty before the scream of the breaking column had become too intense.

It was an ad hoc formation, of course. There was one century that was at about half strength — he still couldn’t believe how much slaughter one warrior had inflicted before going down — and the remnant of the century he’d brought with him, but the rest were dribs and drabs that had managed to make their way to the portal from all over the battlefield. There were even some survivors from the smashed rearguard. (He fought off a stab of pain at the thought — the veteran that had taken an ignorant teenager full of book learning and turned him into a commander of men hadn’t been one of them.)

“Lucius Helvius, make absolutely sure that these guards are in place,” he continued over the leadership communications net. On the HUD he highlighted men at each of the aid station corners then the ones between them, all inside the main ring of legionnaires. “The idea is to hold these people off long enough to talk to them, not force them into a headlong charge to save their wounded, so whatever else _no reprisal killings_. If that means those guards have to kill legionnaires to protect enemy wounded, so be it. If someone attacks those wounded and the guards _don’t_ kill him, I’ll execute him myself before we surrender our arms. Make that clear to the troops, and let me know when you’re ready.”

“ _At once, Tribune,”_ Helvius acknowledged, and the link broke.

As Manilius waited for Helvius to report back, he switched to a legionnaire vidcam facing the aid station across the park and watched the soon-to-be hostages. He hated involving noncombatants, especially ones that were apparently helping the occasional wounded legionnaire, but he had no choice. He’d lost track of the magical girl that could obliterate entire formations, and they didn’t really need her now, anyway — the field that kept the enemy weapons from working properly was gone with the portal. If he simply waited in place sooner or later his men would simply be dead. He needed to prevent that, and that meant mixing the enemy’s people in with his own and praying to God that these people weren’t one of the cultures that would sacrifice its own without a thought.

/\

As Kasumi’s nimble fingers manipulated thread and needle, her stitches as tight and neat as when she’d stretched the household finances by repairing her sisters’ little accidents, she did her best to ignore that this time what she was stitching up was flesh rather than cloth. Finally, she stepped back with a sigh of relief. Done, and this one would live.

She had been certain when she’d finally stepped off the sidelines to force a place for herself on the battlefield that she’d known what to expect and could handle it. She’d been right on the second, but very, very wrong on the first. Intellectually, she’d understood the concept of triage: you don’t have time or resources to try and help everyone, so separate patients out into groups of “it can wait,” “there’s nothing we can do,” and “this one might live if we move fast enough.” What she hadn’t realized was that “might” meant that she and her husband would have patient after patient die even as they fought to save her (and occasionally “him”).

But _this_ young woman would live, and Kasumi stripped off her bloody surgeon’s gloves and tossed them into the garbage. She grabbed a fresh pair before stepping over to the next table and the new patient her husband was examining, another legionnaire this time, they were getting more of them. Good, that meant that the fighting had dropped off enough that the number of seriously wounded Amazons was falling off. Maybe that meant the battle was almost over. _Please, kami, let this be almost over!_

“Here they come.”

Kasumi looked up at the calm, almost resigned statement from the pink-haired magical girl that the eldest Tendo had met the day before, sitting by a blanket-covered unconscious Sailor Saturn and holding her hand a few yards away at the edge of the group of low cots for the ones not wounded badly enough to need immediate help. Seeing the direction the teenager was looking, Kasumi shifted her gaze and froze. “Tofu!” she gasped, fear shooting through her.

Her husband looked up from his patient toward his wife, then followed her pointing hand and stiffened at the sight of the mass of legionnaires trotting toward them. He stepped away from the operating table and joined her, Sailor Chibi-Moon tucking her friend’s hand back under the blanket before rising to join them. Silently, the three watched as the formation approached, the Senshi growing more and more tense, until she seemed to be shivering like a plucked bowstring. Kasumi herself was fighting to maintain her familiar calm, but though she wasn’t trained in the Arts like her youngest sister, she refused to shame her family.

Then ten yards away the formation split, one half circling to the left and the other to the right around the canopies and the patients that had accumulated until they spilled out into the open air. Within minutes, the circle was complete with the enemy on three sides and the rubble of the first building destroyed by Saturn on the fourth, except for the occasional gap in the line — and soldiers that had stepped out of the formation and walked to the edges of the patients before turning away from those patients and those helping them to face the backs of their fellow legionnaires.

Beside Kasumi, Chibi-Moon relaxed, breathing out a relieved sigh. “Those are guards — and to protect us from them, not them from us. Good, we’re hostages, but they’re going to be civilized about it.”

Tofu nodded. “And that means we still have work to do. Come, love, back to work.”

“Right,” Kasumi agreed. As Chibi-Moon sat back down beside her friend and again clutched her hand, Kasumi took a deep breath and finished pulling on the fresh gloves while taking one more look around. Even as she rejoined her husband at the table with the wounded legionnaire, she saw an obviously nervous stretcher party come through a gap in the line of legionnaires. Yes, they _were_ being civilized about it, which meant she and her husband would have plenty to do for some time, yet.

/\

Manilius stood just in front of the ranks of legionnaires and did his best not to rock on his heels with impatience. There’d been no immediate reaction to his soldiers’ new position, except for some stretcher bearers shying off for a few minutes until some of the legionnaires had motioned them in through the gaps to the aid station. He did have to admit that their surprise at being let through was amusing, and their shock at being let back out to collect more even moreso, but that had been only temporarily diverting as he’d watched reinforcements arrive on the field — more of the “modern” male soldiers rather than the warrior women that had mangled his centuries so badly, spreading out to take up positions all around him. So he’d waited for a reaction from the enemy’s leadership ... and waited. Sooner or later, _someone_ had to come forward to accept the surrender that would end his career. He hadn’t heard a shot fired, but from the way the enemy soldiers were staying well back from his men and forming firing lines, they were as well aware of their weapons’ resumed effectiveness as he was. But no shots had been fired.

Finally, six individuals walked through the soldiers surrounding his men and toward him, two men and four women. Four of them he recognized from the views through his legionnaires’ vidcams: the man in dark armor with a sword in its scabbard on his belt, the miniskirted woman with emerald hair and staff tipped with a heart-shaped setting for a large red jewel, and the miniskirted blonde with the long braid swinging behind her — all of their faces somehow hazy, as if he couldn’t remember what they looked like from one moment to the next — had all been with the magical girls destroying the columns; the magical girl with short, dark hair and unusually long skirt (for a magical girl) had helped guard the portal. The older, unarmored man in a military uniform and the redheaded girl in a magical girl costume similar to the raven-haired girl’s were new to him.

The six stopped just out of plumbata range and waited. Behind the six, several men with what he assumed were some sort of recording devices on their shoulders followed them, taking up positions out to the sides. Suppressing a sigh, Manilius started forward, two legionnaires accompanying him on each side. He was not looking forward to communicating the details of a surrender to someone with whom he didn’t share a language. He strongly suspected it was going to look fairly hilarious — it had in previous invasions when the situation had been reversed, after all — and it was going to be recorded for posterity. He halted several yards away, and was considering which of the playactings he’d thought up would look least ridiculous, when the emerald-haired magical girl started speaking and his jaw dropped. He understood her! Okay, the accent was like nothing he’d ever heard, and from the occasional hesitations it wasn’t a language she used much, but it was definitely Latin.

“So, what do you expect us to do with you?”

Manilius stiffened at the cold tone of the question. “I had hoped for an honorable surrender,” he said.

“And just what do you consider an honorable surrender?” she asked in the same frozen voice.

“Medical care for my wounded. Adequate housing, based on that of our guards. Adequate food, likewise. We may be used as physical labor, but not separated or sold as slaves. Executions only for attempts to escape or attacks on guards or civilians. Eventual exchange for prisoners my people take once they return.”

“There’s a problem with that, Tribune,” she said, smiling tightly. “Your people aren’t going to be back.”

“What? What did you _do_?” Manilius demanded, mind racing, trying to think of how the enemy of a world with almost no magic might have prevented a return. The Senate wouldn’t accept a single repulse, would they?

“We did nothing,” she replied. She glanced over at one of the groups of men recording the meeting, then stepped closer. Lowering her voice, she continued, “I am the Senshi of Time. All of this world’s futures are open to me, and in none of them does the Confederacy ever return.”

A time witch! And if she was as powerful as she claimed ... Manilius’ thoughts flashed back over the battle he’d just lost, the way the magical girls had known exactly what needed to be done to block the portal while bringing it down, the way the Amazons had been perfectly positioned on each side of the initial annihilating blast. Sick to his core as he considered the perfect ambush his cohort had landed in, he fought for calm. Finally, voice strained, he said, “We never had a chance, did we?”

“No, you didn’t,” the time witch replied. “I knew you were coming months before the first of your monsters showed up.”

Manilius froze. “Monsters?”

“Yes. Flying snakes with paralytic spit, walking rock piles with acid for blood that explode if they take too much damage, winged things with poison stingers — monsters. That last one _really_ hurts, by the way.”

“But there weren’t any portals before the one you just brought down!” the tribune protested.

She shrugged. “I imagine they got here the same way you did — one way drops, in the middle of noncombatant gatherings, and the monster killed until we showed up to deal with them. All so your leaders could learn how we fought and wear us down, I suspect.

“At any rate, your people aren’t coming back, and since I never was able to find the dimension you came from I can’t send you home, and thanks to the monster attacks you aren’t exactly popular here.”

_Okay, the fact that she can describe some of our battle beasts means nothing — she’s a time witch, after all, she could have watched their use in a now-vanished future._ But even as he thought that, he remembered the revolt he’d been ordered to help put down on Greater Hawaii with extreme force, and the sick feeling in his stomach grew stronger. “I didn’t know,” he whispered.

The emerald-haired woman glanced back toward the redheaded girl, who nodded. “Apparently, you’re telling the truth,” the older woman said, turning back to Manilius. Stepping back and speaking louder, she continued, “Still, while you all aren’t exactly prisoners and slavery is illegal here, neither are you simply free to leave. Where would you go? So for now, have your soldiers stack their arms, and we’ll see to all our wounded. More than that can wait until later.”

“Very well. And to whom am I surrendering them?”

“Oh.” The woman blushed. “My apologies. My name is Sailor Pluto. The others are Sailor Moon, Prince Endymion, Vanguard, Hammer and General Hara.” She motioned to each as she named them. “ ‘General’ is a military rank, roughly equivalent to one of your legates. He will be in charge of the soldiers taking your surrender and guarding your men. I imagine you have a formal ceremony for surrenders?” Manilius nodded, throat tight. “I think we can dispense with it, since I’m the only one here that knows both languages and this isn’t exactly a surrender, anyway.”

“Very well.” Keeping his relief out of his voice, Manilius reached across his body, slowly drew his longsword, and stabbed it into the ground. Motioning for his guards to do the same, he said, “Let’s get this over with so, as you said, we can care for the wounded.” The four legionnaires with him drew their gladii to follow their leader’s example, and Manilius turned to return to his soldiers and tell them of their uncertain but at least continuing future.


	38. If I Don't Make It Back

Dressed in the same blue and silver silk cheongsam she had worn at the welcoming banquet when she took the oaths of the Amazon elders, Ranma stood in the afternoon sunlight on the podium behind Ku Lon gazing out over the ranks of Amazon warriors before them, all of them that weren’t dead or too badly wounded to stand. The calm at her core shivered whenever she allowed herself to consider how few of them there were, less than half of those that had charged into battle that morning. That calm would have been impossible under the weight of the emotions beating on her from the crowd, if pride hadn’t been well mixed with the outpouring grief. A pride that had strengthened as Ku Lon had spoken.

_I’m gonna hafta concentrate on learnin’ their version a’ Chinese,_ Ranma thought. As Princess Yasuko, she should have been the one giving the speech, however much the thought petrified her. But too few of them understood Japanese and this wasn’t the kind of oration that could be handled by an interpreter. (Not that the blushing, stammering version she was likely to have given would have been much of an improvement.)

Mind, it would have been nice to understand just what Ku Lon was saying. Ranma’s eyes shifted to her left, to where Xian Pu stood ramrod straight. She had offered to interpret, but Ku Lon has advised against it — the sight of her great-granddaughter constantly whispering in their princess’s ear would have distracted from the solemnity of the occasion for the warriors watching them. Ranma had almost agreed to it anyway, just to give her friend something to distract her from her grief, but in the end she’d reluctantly agreed with Ku Lon — Xian Pu wasn’t the only one hurting, and she had to consider the needs of _all_ her people. (Ranma fought to keep from shuddering at the thought.)

Now, she was glad she’d decided as she had. Xian Pu’s grief hadn’t lessened, but she, too, had been impacted by the elder’s oration, and the growing pride was making the pain easier to bear, both for Ranma and she suspected for Xian Pu — for now, at least.

On Ranma’s right, Akane lightly brushed against her leg, and Ranma glanced over. Even with all the heavy emotions beating on the princess, she felt a thrill rush through her at the sight of her lover in her own red and gold cheongsam, and the clear, emotion-clean ki radiating from the firmly centered girl was as refreshing as clear, cold water.

Just then, Ku Lon’s voice raised, and Ranma recognized the phrase the Elder had told her and Akane would finish her speech, and the ranks of warriors lifted the unlit torches each held and shouted out. _We’re on._

Turning, Ranma lifted her own unlit torch and thrust the end into the brazier behind her. Stepping down from the podium, she paced to the back of the warriors, then along the ranks, looking each warrior in the eye as she lit her torch.

As she lit the last torch, Akane and Xian Pu stepped down to join her. The three walked around the podium to face the concentric rings of biers made of oil-soaked wood, each bearing a single body. In the center was a single bier, twice as high as any of the rest.

They walked slowly into the center, Xian Pu stopping at a bier in the innermost ring where the body of Mu Tse rested while Ranma and Akane took positions at opposite ends on the bier in the center, on which lay the body of Kuno Tatewaki. Other than moving them onto the biers, the bodies had not been touched — the Amazons sent their battle dead to their reward with the proof of their honor visible to all.

Then Ku Lon walked through the center ring to join Ranma and Akane. “My Princess, everyone’s in place, it’s time,” she said quietly.

Ranma nodded, throat too tight to speak, and stepped forward to thrust her torch into the bier, Akane a second behind her. The two stepped back as fire raced through the pile. Remembering the movie about the American battle where she’d broken an armrest during the pre-movie news reel, on impulse Ranma raised a knife-hand to her forehead in salute. _Goodbye, Kuno. Ya were a massive pain in the ass the entire time I knew ya, until the end, but that made up fer all the rest._

Then, as Akane joined her and Ku Lon, they stepped out of the center to join Xian Pu. The purple-haired girl thrust her own torch into Mu Tse’s bier as soon as they reached her, the warriors on either side following suit, and fair raced around from bier to bier as they continued out circle by circle, until in the end they were again standing in silence outside the final ring, the heat of the fires roaring in the center of the park beating on their faces.

Eventually, Ranma noticed that the number of warriors was diminishing, individuals and groups breaking away to walk around the conflagration toward the buildings where they’d spent the previous night. “What now?” she asked the tiny woman beside her.

Ku Lon sighed. “Now, we pack up to return to the village. Normally, after a victorious battle we’d camp close to the battlefield and spend the night talking about the battle, honoring our dead with our remembrances, then in the morning collect bones and ashes for final burial. But this time there’s just too many dead — so many where nobody knows how they died, because all that saw are among the dead themselves. So we will pack up to return to the village. General Hara has a map of how the biers were laid out, with the names of the fallen. He’s promised to have bones and ashes respectfully collected and sent to us. What about Kuno? I must admit I was a little surprised that he was included in our ceremony, much less given pride of place.”

Ranma’s face hardened. “When everything was over, I called Principal Kuno ta tell him what happened an’ ask what he wanted done with his son’s body. Take out all the weird words, an’ it came down ta ‘do what ya want with the idiot’s body, I couldn’t care less’. So instead a’ sendin’ his ashes back ta that nuthouse, I’m makin’ ‘em the first addition ta a new shrine back at the palace.”

“A fine decision,” Ku Lon agreed, glancing at the young redhead and fighting the temptation to smile — her Princess was coming along nicely. Then, as she focused again on the burning biers, all temptation to smile vanished. She remembered the conversation months earlier with Lady Pluto in a backroom at the new Cat Café, how blasé she had been about changing her people’s ways to meet the needs of their new circumstances. But this ...

“We aren’t going to be able to survive this,” she murmured, eyes fixed on the conflagration.

“What?” Ranma exclaimed. “But the battle’s done, we’ve taken care a’ the wounded —”

Ku Lon shook her head. “No, with the number of dead and crippled we will be hard pressed to raise the children we have now, and the next generation will be much smaller. Combined with needing to adjust to our new home, men leaving because they’d rather adapt Japanese ways, within fifty years we will be a shadow of what we were. And unlike the last time we were hurt this badly millennia ago, we cannot simply pack up and find somewhere that we can be alone in our ways while we recover.”

As Xian Pu stared at her great-grandmother in horror, Ranma frowned at the thought, then grinned. “So if ya can’t hold on ta three thousand years a’ tribal tradition, why don’t ya go back ta the _really_ old ways? Didn’t ya say you were military before you were a people ... a regiment?”

Ku Lon looked up, startled. “Now, _that_ is an interesting thought, youngling, a _very_ interesting thought. I will have to give it some consideration. But for now, we have to be moving on.”

“Yeah, Akane an’ me hafta get ta the hospital,” Ranma agreed. “Hinako-sen — Hinako’s hurt real bad, an’ I need ta heal her. An’ Puu said Saturn’s in the same room, recovering from overusing her power. Should I be up at the village fer anything right away?”

Ku Lon shook her head. “No, not right away. Eventually, a speech about how well we did and how grateful you are for your people’s sacrifice would not be amiss — basically the oration you would have given today, if you could speak our language. But your people will understand if it waits a few days.”

Ranma grimaced but reluctantly nodded.

Beside her, Xian Pu spoke up. “Great-grandmother, you will need to find bodyguards for Ranma — for the Princess. I have a Hunt.”

Even as Ku Lon wearily nodded her agreement, Ranma asked, “How many are ya takin’ with ya?”

“Nobody.”

“Then if ya find him, ya aren’t tryin’ for him ‘til ya call us up an’ more warriors join ya,” Ranma stated. Running over Xian Pu’s instant objections, she continued, “Ya aren’t good enough to beat him alone, and ya know it — _I_ was able ta beat you when he was winning our fights regularly. I’m not lettin’ ya throw yer life away.” Her voice growing softer, she added, “We’d miss you.”

Fighting back tears, Xian Pu finally nodded, then forced a watery grin. “Very well, I will honor my Princess’s wishes.”

Ranma snorted and smacked her lightly on the arm. She and Akane said goodbye to their elder, and headed off as Xian Pu turned back to the burning biers, eyes searching for an inner bier hidden by the leaping flames.

Ku Lon watched the lovers stride away, a grin she hadn’t let them see on her face as she saw Akane tug at the high hem of her dress. _Yes, my Princess is coming along very nicely, indeed._ Turning back to her great-granddaughter, she leaped up to the top of her staff and reached out to rub her hand along the small of Xian Pu’s back. “Xian Pu, I can’t stay, I’m needed elsewhere,” she apologized.

Xian Pu nodded without looking down. “I understand. Go ahead, great-grandmother, I’ll just stay here awhile longer before packing.”

/oOo\

Genma sighed with relief as he slung the pack off his back and dropped it to the ground. It had been a _long_ day since he had exercised the Saotome Final Technique — first back to his house to grab the pack he kept always ready for sudden ‘training trips’ along with a few essentials, the entire run wrapped in the Umisenken and praying to all the kami that the Pluto bitch that he hadn’t realized could teleport wouldn’t be waiting with friends for him there; then hours riding the tops of trains away from Tokyo; then, more hours hiking high up to a tiny mountain glade he and Ranma had found on the training trip and used several times.

Here, he should be able to stay a few restful days waiting for everyone to calm down. After all, it was an accident, right? At least, that was what he’d be able to tell everyone, and who would be able to say otherwise? He’d probably even be able to convince the worthless girl that had replaced his son to pay out the lifetime support even though he hadn’t stuck around for the full battle. Why would they expect him to stay when his own allies are attacking him?

Glancing around the glade, Genma nodded in satisfaction. _I don’t think anybody’s been here since the last time me and ... since I was here. At least, the firewood’s still where ... still stacked after a couple of years. Looks like I should have the place to myself as long as I need. So, just get the tent up and a fire started for supper, but first ..._ He opened his pack and rummaged about for a moment before pulling out the bottle of sake he’d grabbed from the house on his way through. After the day he’d had, he needed to relax a bit.

Genma had been right about not being disturbed, it would be over three months before hikers stumbled across his body. Bones by that time, rather, cause of death never to be determined, much less to whom they belonged.

/oOo\

Setsuna sat down on the chair she’d brought with her this visit to the Time Gates. Unscrewing the cap off the bottle of sake that she’d switched out for one at the Saotome home within minutes of Mu Tse’s murder, she raised it as an informal toast to Hild and the new toy she’d given her to play with. _Sorry, Belldandy, but I’m just not as strong as you are,_ she thought in apology to her absent friend, and tilted the bottle back for a long gulp before activating the Gates to begin her traditional end to a successful major intervention, the after action check to look over what everyone else had been up to while she was cleaning up and to see if any minor unforeseen quirks might possibly blow up into major future shifts. But she suspected that this time she might have to do it twice, because getting absolutely, totally plastered wasn’t usually part of the proceedings. At least she could get smashed, sleep it off, do the recheck if necessary and be back in the real world at the instant she left it, thanks to the fact that the Time Gates weren’t in the same time frame.

Through the millennia, and especially since the failure with Camelot that had almost destroyed her and her friend with her, she had forced herself to always remember that the tools she was manipulating had feelings and dreams of their own, something her friendship with Belldandy had helped with immeasurably. But for all that, she’d also taken to heart the second lesson from that disaster, to never get too involved — to not get emotionally attached to people she was manipulating. And so, for almost fifteen hundred years she had limited her friendships to people that were so insightful or powerful that manipulating them was either impossible or extremely stupid.

Since the awakening of the Senshi that had not been possible, and she had been dreading the fight with the Confederacy and Hotaru’s death for years, terrified of what it — and the accompanying break with Uranus and Neptune — was going to do to her. But that was what the future had required; Hotaru would have gone to her death willingly and with eyes open, a soldier rather than a victim, and the Senshi of Time had been grimly determined to do her duty.

Then Ranma had awoken to her life as Yasuko, that duty had changed, and Hotaru had survived. So why did she feel even more guilty instead of less? _It wouldn’t be because it’s Hotaru, Yasuko, Akane, Xian Pu and Ku Lon that are going to pay the price in heartbreak and nightmares instead of you, Haruka and Michiru, would it?_

Setsuna raised the bottle for another healthy slug of saki and reflected that maybe Usagi would have a point. Maybe it _was_ time to stop being responsible for everyone’s future happiness, or at least would be soon. But whether it was or not, she’d think about it later after she sobered up. It was time to get the slide show started, and she leaned back as events scrolled across the view — tears and celebrations, marriages and more battles, babies and —

She jerked upright and froze the scene. Stared. Reversed it, and watched it again. Did a quick search through possible near-term futures. Sat back and stared thoughtfully at empty space for a time as she thought things over, then checked the futures again. Then carefully screwed the cap back on the bottle of sake. It looked like she wouldn’t be getting drunk, after all.

/\

In the room Xian Pu had been given in the hotel where the uninjured and lightly wounded Amazons were staying, she did her best to keep herself focused on the pack she was loading of the basic essentials for a weeks-long hunt for a murdering coward, estimating how long the dried food and yen she had would last. She didn’t have much, most of her travelling supplies were in the palace suite back at Nikko she’d shared with Mu Tse. But if she went there to pick it up first, she’d have to face the weapons rack on the wall where her lover had kept weapons he was repairing and maintaining, the small table where he’d left the scroll of the tribe’s history he’d been studying, the bed where they’d spent their nights. She knew in time she would have to take down and box up his things, give most to the poorer members of the tribe, keep what few memories that were all she had left of the young man she had known and adored most of her life, but not yet ... dear gods, not yet —

The knock on her door was a relief. “Come in!” she called out, only to feel her relief vanish as the last person she wanted to see walked through the door, Lady Pluto in her black and white mini-skirted fuku. Instantly Xian Pu felt her body preparing for battle, fought to keep from attacking the emerald-haired tribal legend, so intent on the focus of her fury that she barely noticed MacKenzie behind her. “You _knew_!” she shouted, fists clenched, using her anger to fight back tears.

MacKenzie tried to step in front of Pluto, only to run into Pluto’s outstretched arm. “No need,” she whispered. Focusing back on the distraught girl, she shook her head. “No, I didn’t know. I knew it was a possibility, of course, but not a very likely one. Actually, _your_ death was more likely than his. I don’t know why Doug was paying more attention to Genma than to a horde of approaching soldiers all eager to kill him.”

Xian Pu stared, her anger evaporating, then fell back to sit on the bed, remembering why she had passed the job of getting Genma ready for the battle to Jen Ni. “Why? If there was a chance the Panda would try to kill me, why was he asked to join us?”

Pluto sighed with relief, shoulders slumping. “Because of Hinako-kun. Without Genma, Yasuko wouldn’t have allowed her to join us, the chances of her death would have been too high. And without the two of them, the destruction of the columns would have taken considerably longer. How many more of your sisters, how many more JSDF soldiers would have died?”

Xian Pu stared at the wall for awhile, but eventually nodded as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “You are right, the risk of one life to save many, even his. It’s why we fought, after ... after all ...”

This time, when MacKenzie stepped forward Pluto let him go. He sat on the bed beside the Amazon, pulled her into a hug and let her cry on his shoulder, while the Senshi of Time pulled the chair away from the room’s desk and sat while the teenager cried herself out.

As Xian Pu finally brought herself under control and sat up, scrubbing at her cheeks, Pluto quietly cleared her throat to catch the other two’s attention. “I am sorry to have to bring this up so soon, but events are moving a little fast, at the moment.” She hesitated, shrugged, and continued, “Xian Pu, I am sorry to be blunt, but there’s no point in hunting Genma, it’s already handled. If he isn’t dead yet, he will be within hours.”

“What!” Xian Pu shot to her feet, rage again mottling her features. “No, he was _my_ kill, you had no right!”

“No more than I did to help bring all of us together to make the defeat of the Confederacy possible,” Pluto replied with another shrug. “Power carries its own responsibility. This isn’t like the last time you came to Japan hunting someone, Xian Pu, you aren’t under the radar anymore. If you did hunt Genma down and kill him, the government wouldn’t be able to ignore it. Would the elders allow an outsider to come into your village and kill people with impunity, however well deserved? Is your vengeance worth the loss of your status as Champion and bodyguard to Princess Yasuko? And then there’s your son to think of.”

“My son? But I don’t have ... I’m pregnant?” At Pluto’s nod, Xian Pu collapsed back onto the bed. “I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant!” She smiled as fresh tears started, thinking of the new future ahead of her, looking after a little Mu Tse, telling him of his father, teaching him her art and praising him as Ranma and Mu Tse’s family taught him theirs (of course he would be brilliant at all of them), pretending to disapprove when he began to notice the differences between boys and girls....

“And that brings us to the final point tonight,” Pluto said, regretfully breaking into the young woman’s daydreams. “It’s also why I asked Doug-kun to come here with me — though I didn’t tell him why in advance.” She paused for a moment, trying to think of a way to break the news gently as the pair sitting on the bed exchanged puzzled glances. Finally she shrugged again. _Might as well just tear off the band aid._ “It would be a great favor to me if the two of you married.” Waiting for a few moments for the stunned pair to collect themselves, she continued, “A child needs a father, and I’m just too busy to be a proper mother. I would like the two of you to raise little Serenity for me.”

MacKenzie blanched. “We ... I ... you ...” he stammered as Xian Pu looked back and forth between them, realization dawning. For a moment, the pain lurking in her eyes lightened and her lips twitched with what could perhaps charitably be called a hint of a smile.

Pluto began to giggle, before sternly bringing herself back under control. “Yes, the Machiavellian schemer Meioh Setsuna, Lady Pluto, Guide of Humanity and Manipulator of Nations, forgot to use proper protection last night. It isn’t often than something catches me completely by surprise, and even less often it’s a pleasant one.” Sobering, she turned to Xian Pu. “I know, you aren’t ready to start another relationship, won’t be for quite awhile. But it isn’t like our babies are going to be born tomorrow.

“And Doug, I know you have the remainder of your current enlistment to finish, and were thinking of reenlisting. I was going to ask you not to anyway, to immigrate to Japan instead, in, say, about a year. There’s an entire tribe of warriors here that knows nothing of modern warfare, not to mention the Senshi and a certain Princess and her lover. They’re going to need your help, and the men are going to need a role model for their new country. Besides, things in the United States are going to get ... ugly. In not all that many years, it will no longer be the country you take pride in serving. I’m going to strongly suggest to the rest of your clan that they move here, as well.”

The two on the bed were exchanging glances again, shy, troubled, thoughtful. “A year?” Xian Pu finally said. “I don’t ... I’m not ...”

“You don’t think you’ll be ready that early?” Setsuna asked quietly. “You don’t think you’ll _ever_ be ready? The pain at the mere thought of Mu Tse is too intense?” When Xian Pu jerkily nodded she continued, “I know it’s a cliché, but it really does get better with time. The memories will be happy ones again, pain softened to melancholy and then changed to fondness. I _know_. And you will have your son — _his_ son — to help. A year, to begin.”

Xian Pu stared into dark red eyes soft with understanding sympathy, then dropped her eyes. “I ... maybe I’ll be ready by then, yes. And you are right, little Mu Tse will need a father. Doug-sensei ... Doug-kun?”

_Well, Doug?_ he thought through his shock. The girl sitting on the bed beside him was a far cry from the energetic, cheerful girl that had helped him train Yasuko and Akane, that he had found almost irresistible. (Her having a lover that could effortlessly dice him into tiny cubes in a stand-up fight had helped his restraint a great deal.) And she didn’t love him, and perhaps never would. But then he glanced over at his family’s patron and old friend, his eyes falling to her abdomen as he remembered what she’d said ... a daughter needed a father. _And a mother, even more in the early years._ And his family was likely to take their patron’s advice _very_ seriously, if they moved to Nikko as well.... MacKenzie had grown up on a steady diet of country music, but his mother had met his father while he was in the Marines, assigned to a post in Washington, D.C., and she had brought a taste for Broadway musicals out west with her. As he thought of the possible future for him and Xian Pu if they married, he remembered a scene from Fiddler on the Roof, of a couple twenty-five years married, finally admitting that they loved each other. Finally he nodded, turning again to Xian Pu. “I know I can never replace Mu Tse, but if you think that I’d be a fit father for his son, if you’re willing to be a mother for my daughter, how can I refuse?”

“Thank you,” Xian Pu replied, forcing a tremulous smile. Rising to kneel on the bed, she lifted her hands to cup MacKenzie’s cheeks and leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the mouth. “You, I love,” she murmured softly, before dropping back to sit on the bed, hugging her legs to her chest with her face pressed against her knees, rocking slightly.

Pluto sighed, eyes watery. “Congratulations, Doug — proposal, acceptance, confirmation, all in front of an elder-equivalent of the tribe. You’re married — by Amazon law, at least. Xian Pu, I’ll have some papers for you and Doug-kun to sign tomorrow, to make it official by Japanese law.”

Xian Pu nodded without looking up.

After a moment of silence, Pluto stood and motioned for MacKenzie to accompany her. He gently squeezed his new wife’s shoulder, trying to offer a moment’s comfort, then rose to join Pluto as she led the way out of the room and closed the door behind her. “Should we be leaving her alone?” he asked in English. “She needs help.”

“Yes, but the prophetess that couldn’t prevent her lover’s death and the man that’s replaced him aren’t the two to give it,” Pluto replied as she started walking down the hall toward the stairwell. “Akane has actually become a fairly close friend, and her big sister could mother an axe murderer; I’ll ask them to come over and stay with her. Yasuko won’t be waking up before morning at the earliest and Saturn will have the rest of her family and friends around when she wakes up, so they won’t be missed much at the hospital.

“No, it’s best if you spend as little time around Xian Pu as possible right now. In fact, you should probably get packed and ready to head back to base as soon as I can get you the paperwork for your marriage and you can say your goodbyes to Yasuko.”

MacKenzie nodded, stopping at the stairwell door leading to his room’s floor. “So what do I tell my folks?”

“Don’t, not until you can talk to them in person — we really don’t want this in writing or talked about over the phone. And by then, I can join you to explain things.”

“Sounds good.” He paused, searching for what to say to the abruptly revealed mother of his daughter.

Pluto waited for a few moments, then smiled and lifted up on tiptoes and pulled his head down to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you for a wonderful time last night, and a very pleasant surprise tonight,” she said. “Now get some rest, I’ll see you in the morning.”

She kept her smile up until MacKenzie had made his farewell and the stairwell door closed behind him, then slumped against the wall and rubbed tiredly at her eyes. _Okay, head to the hospital, then one more stop for the night, and I can catch a few hours sleep before the city offices open._

/oOo\

Sailor Moon was jerked from her doze by the door to the hospital room knocking into her shoulder where she sat in a strategically placed chair. Sitting up and rubbing her eyes, she stood and stepped around to move the chair out of the way, careful not to hit anyone else in the badly overcrowded room.

Opening the door, she put a finger to her lips. “Shhhhh,” she warned, then smiled at the sight of Sailor Pluto. Stepping aside, she motioned her in. “Welcome to the slumber party,” she quipped.

Pluto stepped in past the two Amazon warriors that had parked themselves on either side of the doorway and closed the door, then looked around with a smile at all the slumbering bodies filling the room — Ranma lying on the bed with Hinako, their hands clasped and wrists strapped together, already in a shared healing trance (the former teacher still in her adult form, Pluto made a note to look into that), with Soun stretched out on the other side of the bed; Chibi-Moon on the other bed with Saturn, Neptune and Uranus sitting on the floor with their heads pillowed on the bed beside them; Akane, Kasumi and Tofu, Ukyo and Konatsu, Nodoka and Nabiki all slumped in chairs.

Once it was clear that the battle was over and the tech-suppression field gone, Moon had healed as many as she still had strength for while Ranma had scanned the seriously wounded that Moon wasn’t getting to and reported the exact damage (Akane joining her lover, as training in what the various ways to try and kill people with sharp objects looked like on the inside) before ambulances carried them away to all the hospitals close around and helicopters took care of wounded requiring more specialized care and hospitals further away. Meanwhile, Kasumi and Tofu had continued their work while the other Senshi pitched in to do what they could to help, even if that was simply binding up the lightly wounded and carrying stretchers. Nodoka and Nabiki had refused to evacuate before the battle, settling for putting a few buildings between them and the battle, and they had returned and pitched in as well.

But soon enough the wounded were all cared for, and while Ranma and Akane had stayed to do their part for the Amazon dead, the rest had naturally gravitated to the room that Hinako and Saturn shared. Since neither had anything wrong with them that the medical staff could help with, the grumbling nurses had allowed them to fill the room to bursting. But the lack of real concern about the invalids and the trials of the day had proven too much, and now the variety of snores that filled the room forced a quiet chuckle from Senshi of Time, joined by equally quiet giggles from her Princess.

The still giggling fuku-clad woman motioned for Pluto to take her chair and closed the door behind her, then sat on the floor and leaned back against the door. “So General Hara finally decided they didn’t need you to interpret anymore?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, they finally brought in a replacement,” Pluto replied, “a Catholic priest — for some reason, there just aren’t many scholars that can speak Latin in Japan. Read it, yes, some; speak it, no.” Chuckling again, she added, “Remind me to check the reaction to his report back at the Vatican, it should be entertaining.”

Moon giggled again, then sobered as she noticed Pluto looking toward the youngest of the Senshi and her foster mothers. She glanced around at what she could see of the sleeping crowd.

_I suppose this is as good a time for this as any,_ Pluto thought, glancing at the suddenly serious blonde when the giggles cut off. “Everyone’s asleep,” Pluto assured her Princess.

Moon gave her a sharp look, then nodded. Closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the door, she was silent for a long moment collecting her thoughts before asking, “Pluto, can we get by without the Time Gates? I don’t like the decisions they force on you. I hate thinking of what would have happened if little sis hadn’t woken up and Saturn had died, and what it would have done to you, and Neptune and Uranus.”

“It would have been ugly,” Pluto agreed. “You have no idea how deeply Neptune and Uranus love our little firefly, they would have never really recovered. All the way up to their deaths in 2072, they wouldn’t forgive me.” Moon bolted upright, eyes wide with horror. Pluto shook her head, smiling softly. “Relax. As you said, Yasuko woke up, that future is gone.”

As Moon slumped in relief, Pluto’s smile vanished, her face thoughtful. “As for giving up the Time Gates, I just don’t know. Tell me, have you noticed how, while all of you have grown stronger, more skilled with your powers, moved beyond the programmed attacks you had when you first awoke, I still have the same simple Dead Scream, and Chronos Typhoon and Garnet Ball if I have the Time Staff ready?”

Moon frowned in thought. “No, I hadn’t noticed, really, but you’re right. Why haven’t you gotten better, like the rest of us?”

“Because I can’t. Remember, when Beryl brought down the Moon Queendom, it was Saturn and me together that remade the Earth into a place where people could have something approaching a civilization without magitech. That effort killed Saturn, but me it only crippled. Since then, that’s all I’ve had, and all I’m _going_ to have — except the Time Gates.”

“I see. I’m sorry,” Moon said softly.

Pluto shrugged. “I’ve had four thousand years to get used to it, I hardly miss being able to send my mind dancing through the worlds.”

The look Moon gave her mentor of years said she wasn’t buying it, but after a moment she chose to let it pass for now. “What about if you simply shut down the part of the Gates that lets you see the possible futures?” she asked instead. “That would still make you the best spy a princess could ask for, without having to decide who risks dying because you meddled with their lives.”

“That could work, eventually, but not for a few years, yet. There’s still a few more ... interventions I need to make to cement our new future. Beyond that ... you may have the right idea. I don’t know if I can selectively shut down the Time Gates’ capabilities, but there’s nothing that says I _have_ to use them all.” _Okay, enough seriousness, and I need to get moving. And I know the perfect distraction._

Straightening, Pluto stretched and sighed. “But that’s for later. For now, I just need to ask a favor of Akane and Kasumi. Then I’ll have one more stop, and I’ll be done for the day. By the way,” she added as Moon stood up, “not everything I learn through the Time Gates makes for a horrible, gut-wrenching moral dilemma. For instance, I’m pregnant.”

Moon’s squee of delight woke up everyone in the room except Saturn, Ranma and Hinako.

/oOo\

Pluto leaned on the Time Staff, watching in the Time Gates as the same general that she’d seen the day she’d learned just how much the Imperial Household knew of the Senshi reported to Emperor Akihito and Crown Prince Akishino in the same working office as before on the cleanup after the battle, the hospitals overloaded with wounded, the special train for transporting most of the Amazons able to travel back to Nikko, the current disposition of the hundreds of surviving legionnaires, the footage the camera crews had captured and how much they wanted to reveal to the public. Eventually, he finished the report, the Emperor thanked him for his information, and he left.

_Eleven minutes ago,_ the Senshi of Time thought, then fast-forwarded through the rest of the period up to the present moment and grinned. _And it looks like afterward the Emperor and Crown Prince simply talked until now, it’s almost as perfect as the last time._

Banishing the grin, she _stepped_ into the office she had just been observing and calmly bowed to its startled occupants. “Your Majesty, your Royal Highness, I believe it is my turn to give an after action debriefing?”

/\

“Yes, I believe your suggestion has merit,” the Emperor agreed. “If we are unable to send them home, moving the legionnaires into a neighboring village will work about as well as we can expect. It will put them out of sight of most of the world and close to the Amazons, giving us a readily available force if they prove difficult. And with both groups so close together, it will be easier to further their acclimation.”

“Thank you, your Majesty,” Pluto said, bowing from where she knelt beside the same low table in the same informal meeting room as the last time. This time she wasn’t as graceful, only just catching herself before plowing headfirst into the tea service, the same excellent green tea slopping from her cup across the tabletop.

The Emperor waved off her apologies even as the Crown Prince hastily wiped at the spreading liquid with a napkin, keeping it from escaping off the table. “It has been a hard day, you are exhausted and need your rest. Is there anything that truly cannot wait until later?”

Carefully putting the priceless tea cup down on its saucer, Pluto replied, “There is one thing. It isn’t something that needs to be acted on right away, but at this point we need to make certain that we are on the same page — the _real_ reason you originally wanted to speak with me.” Turning to the Crown Prince, she continued, “Your offer of marriage to Princess Yasuko. You are still serious about it?”

Taking a moment to catch up with the abrupt shift in topic, the Crown Prince nodded. “Yes.”

“You are aware that she and Akane are lovers? She isn’t going to be willing to break that off, and even if she was she has no interest in men. Quite the opposite, actually, the last man to feel her up on a train needed a surgeon to reconstruct his hand. Any time she spends in your bed would be solely for appearances.”

“Yes, I am aware of the relationship between her and Akane-san, and how strong it is. I would never demand that they separate, I’m sure we can come up with an explanation for her continual presence around the Princess. As for the rest, the truth is that since the deaths of my wife and children I have had no interest of that sort in any woman. I have no desire to try to change that with Princess Yasuko, however devastatingly cute she is. Children conceived through artificial insemination will be enough.”

Pluto shook her head. “She won’t be willing to agree to that, either, not for years if ever. But there shouldn’t be any problem finding women eager to volunteer to be host mothers and keep it quiet. Still, even if she agreed to the marriage she’d need years of training before she’d be ready, and at least some of those years would be required to give the public time to adjust to the idea.”

“I understand, that would not be a problem,” Akishino agreed.

Pluto sat quiet for a long moment, before finally asking, “Why do you wish to make this offer?”

Crown Prince Akishino sighed, his eyes falling. “Because of the accident that killed my family, and my older brother and _his_ family,” he said. “I am not so sure that it was an accident. If I have no more children, I ... am not certain that the branch of the family that would fall heir to the emperorship would be what this country needs. I need a mother for my heirs that can survive further assassination attempts, if that is what it was.”

“I see.” Pluto looked over at Emperor Akihito. “Do you share your son’s concerns?”

He nodded. “I do, on both counts.”

She took a deep breath and straightened. “Your concerns are well founded, both of them, though the person who ordered the assassinations would not have gotten what he expected as a result. I have been playing a cat-and-mouse game with him for some time, and eventually I’ll catch him — it’s only a question of time, and the final price. But I should be the one who makes the offer to Yasuko, at the proper time. Otherwise, she will simply refuse.”

The Emperor and the Crown Prince exchanged glances, then Akishino bowed. Smiling slightly, he said, “You will make a more than acceptable omiai. I thank you for the offer.”

Pluto fought her laugh down to a snort. Rising to her feet and staggering slightly as her hosts rose, she gave a slight bow, as much to avoid falling on her face from exhaustion as to maintain a level of equality. “I think that covers everything we need to discuss, so now I think I will seek that rest you mentioned.”

The two men returned her bow and murmured their farewells, and Pluto _stepped_ back to the Time Gates. _I wonder if everyone has gone back to sleep?_ she thought, remembering the hospital room. If so, she could take one of the chairs that Kasumi and Akane had left behind....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One general comment on the fate of Genma: for all those that were looking forward to an unholy smackdown, sorry, but I personally think that for him, this is worse. Not only does he not go out in a blaze of glory and ends up at Hild's nonexistent mercies, but he completely vanishes from history. His Art is gone, his Name is gone, not only does no one know where he lies, but in time no one will know who he was. His life turned out to be that of a complete nonentity.
> 
> Also, the way he died says a lot about Setsuna, doesn't it?
> 
> And yes, I know this doesn't exactly feel like the end of a story, because it isn't. As Gandalf said to Bilbo in the cartoon version of The Hobbit, "This is only the beginning!"
> 
> The episode title comes from the song by the same name by Tracy Lawrence. Excerpted:
> 
> Have a beer for me, don't waste no tears on me  
> On Friday night sit on the visitor's side  
> And cheer for the home team  
> Drive my Camaro, 90 miles an hour down Red Rock Road  
> With 'Born to Run' blastin' on the radio  
> And find someone good enough for Amy  
> Who will love her like I would have  
> If I don't make it back
> 
> If the good Lord calls me home  
> I'd like to think my friends  
> Will think about me when I'm gone
> 
> Well, Miller Lite ain't my brand  
> But I drink one every now and then, in his honor  
> And we ain't missed a home game yet  
> Had that Camero at 110 on Red Rock Road  
> When the speakers blowed  
> And I introduced Amy to a friend of mine from Monroe  
> He's a good ol' boy  
> But you know, she just ain't ready


End file.
